Trump Surrenders

Peloni:  The reality is that the Iranian regime will not surrender, and will never surrender.  To force the regime from power, as indicated in the often raised analogy to the Nazis in WWII, Trump would need to commit a ground force to eliminate the regime in Tehran, as was done with the Nazi regime in 1945 Germany.  Of course, Trump could have used the Kurds, but instead chose to once again abandon such strategies which conflict with Turkey’s interests.  This leaves no such available capable armed force in the region to force the Iranian regime from power, and Trump was never going to use American warfighters in Iran despite his hyperbole and threats.  The Iranians know this, and so they persist.  Hence victory was always going to be ceded to the Iranians.  Trump’s blockade has the means to cripple the Iranians financially, but even as we speak, China and Pakistan are moving to improve the overland transit of oil from Iran to keep China’s Iranian pawn in the Middle East fed with cash, if not also with arms aplenty to use against either the Iranians or the Americans & Israelis if war returns.

The president turns on his ally to attain a false peace.

by Robert Spencer | June 2, 2026

President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Monday, July 7, 2025, at the South Portico of the White House.(Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

Trump himself announced the betrayal on Monday:

I had a conversation with Bibi Netanyahu today, asking him not to go into a major raid of Beirut, Lebanon. He turned his Troops around. Thank you Bibi! I also had a conversation with Representatives of the Leaders of Hezbollah, and they agreed to stop shooting at Israel, and its soldiers. Likewise, Israel agreed to stop shooting at them. Let’s see how long that lasts — Hopefully it will be for ETERNITY! President DONALD J. TRUMP

This followed the Islamic Republic of Iran’s insistence that the ceasefire include Israel’s defensive actions against Hizballah. When Hizballah fired rockets into Israel anyway, which it almost certainly did upon orders from Tehran, since the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps created Hizballah and still operates it today, the Iranians broke off the negotiations that Trump wants so desperately.

In response, the president should have told the world that the Iranian government was not operating in good faith, and resumed military operations (no, not American boots on the ground) with the intention of weakening the Islamic Republic so that the long-suffering people of Iran can finally overthrow it. Instead, he turned against his own ally, Israel, ordering it to stop actions against Hizballah (which did not,  by the way, include a raid against Beirut) and, by his own account, having a “conversation” with a jihad terror group, in which they agreed, by what inducement he does not say, to stop doing what they were created to do, and which is their sole purpose in existing.

It’s easy to see why Trump has done this. Gas prices are already high, and if the war drags on as it has been doing, it will become an albatross around the necks of Republicans who are running in the midterms. And so Trump has ended it, but the ending leaves us even worse off than we were at the start. Before the conflict started, the Islamic Republic of Iran was a rogue regime that threatened the very existence of a sovereign state, and had repeatedly announced its unshakably hostile stance toward the United States while enriching uranium to just below weapons-grade level, far beyond what is needed for any civilian use.

After this conflict, all that is still true. Iran is weaker than it was before, but the Islamic regime is still in place, and now it can and will crow that it has outlasted the global superpower and bested the mighty Trump, who had up to this point given the impression that he was determined to restore America’s strength on the global stage. But now, Trump’s incessant announcements of impending doom and drawing of red lines which the Iranians then instantly crossed, and his hostility to Israel and endless accommodation of Tehran, makes the president look weak and indecisive, and even ridiculous.

Patriots used to mock Barack Obama for drawing red lines in Syria that would immediately be crossed, followed by the drawing of a new red line. Now Trump has made Barack Obama look like a strong leader. None of America’s war aims against Iran have been attained or will be attained. The Iranian leadership still has its nuclear material. It is still screaming “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” The can has been kicked down the road yet again, and it will be up to a future president to deal with the threat of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Given Trump’s actions, that future president will likely be a Democrat who will solve the Iranian problem the way Obama and Old Joe Biden did, by sending a few billion dollars over to Tehran and hoping the money will keep the mullahs quiet until the next president is in office.

Trump himself takes umbrage at this negative talk. On Monday night, he wrote:

If Iran surrenders, admits their Navy is gone and resting at the bottom of the sea, and their Air Force is no longer with us, and if their entire Military walks out of Tehran, weapons dropped and hands held high, each shouting “I surrender, I surrender” while wildly waving the representative White Flag, and if their entire remaining Leadership signs all necessary “Documents of Surrender,” and admit their defeat to the great power and force of the magnificent U.S.A., The Failing New York Times, The China Street Journal (WSJ!), Corrupt and now Irrelevant CNN, and all other members of the Fake News Media, will headline that Iran had a Masterful and Brilliant Victory over The United States of America, it wasn’t even close. The Dumacrats and Media have totally lost their way. They have gone absolutely CRAZY!!! President DJT

Right. But Iran has not surrendered. The Islamic Republic is not going to surrender. No “Documents of Surrender” have been signed, or will be signed. Instead, the Islamic Republic has survived, and that was all it needed to do in order to claim victory. It will wage jihad again against both the U.S. and Israel. One man has enabled the Islamic Republic to survive. The Iranian leaders should erect a statue of him in Tehran. That man is Donald J. Trump.