[ Editorial ] Cheerleader-in-Chief
Trump's speech yesterday reveals how deep he is in the war he started — a war he's experiencing in a purely fictional mode. Massive cognitive dissonance.
Donald Trump delivered his remarks yesterday with all the conviction of a man reading someone else’s eulogy. The speech was little more than a greatest-hits reel of his own Truth Social posts: the U.S. is close to achieving all its military objectives; Iran will be struck hard in the coming weeks, its energy infrastructure pulverized; Iran has lost the war, has no army, no navy, no air force left; the regime has been “decimated”; Iran has no choice but to accept the deal or face total destruction at the hands of the most powerful military the world has ever seen. And so on.
We’ve heard this tune on loop since July 2025. What’s harder to dismiss is the question it raises: why is a sitting president staging a public Coué session — the old French technique of therapeutic self-persuasion — for an audience that can see the reality on the ground?
Is Trump being fed a curated picture of events by the gang around him — Kushner, Witkoff, Lutnick, Bessent, Miller, Graham, Cruz, and the rest — men whose interests, whatever they may be, demonstrably don’t align with those of the United States? Or is this simply the attention span of a man constitutionally incapable of staying focused on anything uncomfortable for more than five minutes?
The gap between the rhetoric and the reality is not subtle.
The Strait of Hormuz remains closed. Every significant U.S. installation in the Persian Gulf is either destroyed or rendered off-limits — including the Al Udeid air base in Qatar, whose hosts have refused to allow it to be used in what they regard as a war of aggression. U.S. carrier groups cannot approach within 400 nautical miles of the Iranian coast. Tehran continues to strike Israeli and American targets across the region at will. Fewer than one in five missiles and drones is being intercepted.
Israel and the United States are in a state of total strategic defeat. Trump does not have the leverage to dictate terms. Iran does. Its conditions are clear: full withdrawal of U.S. military presence from the region; the exit of American companies — Palantir, HP, Oracle, JPMorgan, AWS etc.— operating under Pentagon contracts and designated as legitimate targets by the Revolutionary Guards; guarantees against future aggression; sanctions relief; and reparations.
A ground offensive, even a limited one to seize one of the islands controlling the Strait, is no longer a realistic option. The human and political cost would be prohibitive. The deployment of 82nd Airborne paratroopers and 2,500 Marines is theater — reassurance for Gulf monarchies that, contrary to mainstream coverage, are not urging Washington to press on with this war.
In fact, according to sources close to the matter, some Gulf monarchs are quietly signaling to Tehran through discreet channels that they may be prepared to deliver what Iran wants — up to and including expelling U.S. forces themselves and paying reparations directly. The fear of a new Arab Spring is that acute.
Europe, Russia, China, and India all have a shared interest in supporting such a resolution. It is the only path to reopening the Strait. And once U.S. military forces are out, the sanctions regime loses whatever teeth it still has — for everyone.
Trump faces a choice with no good options: stay stuck in the quagmire at enormous cost, with diminishing strike capacity and zero diplomatic leverage — or cut his losses and absorb the political price of an open, unambiguous defeat.
Either way, the midterms in November look grim. One or more impeachment proceedings appear increasingly likely. If the Senate flips, he may find himself in Nixon’s position: resigned to resignation.
The man who staged the most remarkable political comeback in American history — who won the popular vote outright, dominated the Electoral College, and holds majorities in both chambers of Congress — has managed to torpedo his own presidency. He was handed a blank check. The mandate was to deliver for Americans. Instead, he spent it on Israel’s wars and the enrichment of the gangsters who surround him.
Trump built his brand on one core promise: no more wars. He broke it. The question now is whether history will record him not as the dealmaker he fancied himself, but as something rather different — the biggest loser you’ll ever see.