Translated from GegenStandpunkt 2-2026
Welcome to the world of MAGA imperialism
Peace through war in the Middle East
The US attack on Iran
A traditional enmity and a historically reliable enemy image
One month after the war begins, Trump updates his people:
“Tonight, I want to provide an update on the tremendous progress our warriors have made in Iran and discuss why Operation Epic Fury is necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world. From the very first day I announced my campaign for president in 2015, I have vowed that I would never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. This fanatical regime has been chanting, ‘Death to America, Death to Israel,’ for 47 years. Their proxies were behind the murder of 241 Americans in the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut. the slaughter of hundreds of our service members with roadside bombs. They were involved in the attack on the USS Cole, and they carried out the countless other heinous acts, including the blood, just horrible, bloody atrocities of October 7th in Israel. Something that most people have never seen anything like it. This murderous regime also recently killed 45,000 of their own people who were protesting in Iran – 45,000 dead. For these terrorists to have nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat. The most violent and thuggish regime on earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest, and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield. I will never let that happen, and neither should any of our past presidents.” (Trump, April 1, 2026)
For American ears, that must have a harmonious ring.
After all, it resonates with an enmity that is absolutely uncontroversial across every one of the nation’s divisions – and is justified with a pleasantly familiar enemy image: This country murders Americans. Trump’s colleagues must also have appreciated the indifference it shows to the minor detail that the American casualties were incurred as part of military operations on Iran’s doorstep. They do indeed always assume that US soldiers enjoy immunity. They are, in the end, on their way to protect the freedom and security that Americans and all other decent global citizens require when going about their business – especially in a region of such vital importance. That’s why a military presence in this region is needed on a scale and level of firepower that has long made the USA the largest military power in the Middle East, with bases and weapons depots scattered across the entire region. The many American “boots” stationed there, viewed the right way, are on home “ground”; if they encounter hostile resistance there, it is with good reason that they can consider themselves victims of foreign aggression. Especially since the terrorist style of some of these attacks – perpetrated, moreover, by insidious proxies – shows that the state mastermind behind such terrorist attacks can hardly claim this region as its unambiguous asset – de facto and thus also de jure. It’s precisely this defining feature of legitimate power that the Iranian regime doesn’t have.
No question: The USA has always considered this region its asset – not in the freedom-opposing form of a right to colonial plunder, but rather in the modern form of a right to international friendship. The local sovereigns demonstrate this through their good conduct in relation to America’s “vital interests,” primarily through an exclusively pro-American use of the dollars they are allowed to endlessly earn, as long as they respect America’s supervision of the peace. Unlike Iran, which has been disturbing it for nearly 50 years. So that the mere possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb has always been accompanied by the certainty of continued Iranian crimes – shielded from the USA’s freedom and security to solely decide in this region which arms and/or what state of defenselessness all other powers must feel free and secure in.
And this, too, is part of the USA’s traditionally expansive feeling of being at home in the Middle East: a partisanship for the State of Israel so deep – almost like an organic extension of American freedom – that on “10/7,” America experienced a second “9/11,” which not only justifies but obligates the military annihilation of even the mere possibility of such inherently unprecedented acts. And it must ultimately come as a complete surprise to America’s foreign policy establishment that it is – of all people – the “America First!” fanatic who is promising to fulfill this duty of war in the name of all peoples – even and especially the Iranians themselves who the war is being waged against. This echoes the decidedly non-isolationist stance of a protective power over the entire world, which is so sorely missed in Trump’s actions in Ukraine and against Russia. In doing so, he reveals a remarkably fortunate affinity for the time-tested national self-image that has always accompanied the American world order: America is and remains unrivaled as a world power precisely because it takes responsibility for the use of force across the globe.
All in all, Trump’s declaration of war essentially has the right stuff for bringing about peace between the embodiment of “MAGA” and the Washington establishment he so detests – in the name of the principle that America must not simply get rid of an enemy regime in Iran, but defend the universal principle of international friendship. For without the prohibition on violence secured with America’s capacity for violence, the nations of the world can be neither free nor secure to do what is expected of them in the Pax Americana: to plunge their peoples into a peaceful competition for a global business in which American money can feel right at home everywhere.
That sounds too good to be true.
A reckoning with the recent tradition of American hostility to Iran
It’s not only in the final sentence of this declaration of war that Trump makes it clear that his war is not to be understood as merely the long-overdue resolution of a traditional enmity, but rather as a reckoning with the entire war scenario that his predecessors had brought about after 47 years of hostility toward Iran. And because Trump, just like his colleagues, takes the view that in this case the USA has a general principle to defend, on which its status and self-image as the sole world power hinges, he frames his war as a general correction of the way in which his predecessors defined this claim to world power in the first place, and thus of what the USA’s unique military capabilities are actually for. For Trump, this much has long been certain: The military power of the USA does not exist so that its civilian commander in chief can put up with war situations that are unproductive for America, merely containing and managing them instead of eliminating them once and for all. For Trump, the case of Iran serves as a highly suitable illustration of this principle – both for how far America’s claim to world power and desire for peace has gone to the dogs, and for how it must be appropriately remedied.
Trump’s reckoning with the war situation in the Persian Gulf, which he sees himself faced with at the beginning of his second term, began back in his first term with the termination of the JCPOA (“Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”), the nuclear agreement concluded under Obama.[1] This “plan of action” subjected the Iranian nuclear industrial complex to a control regime dominated by America and finalized with UN veto powers who had been invited to participate, plus Germany; this was intended to make sure that Iran’s nuclear potential could never become weapons-grade, that is, could never provide it with a guarantee of survival against the hostility of the USA. In return, Iran was granted a gradual easing of the far-reaching US sanctions, as well as the exclusion of its missile program and its regional proxies – Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, etc. – from the agreement. For Trump, the Obama administration’s willingness to settle for a negotiated outcome amounting to anything less than the mullah regime’s unconditional surrender turned the entire premise of those negotiations on its head: Of all things, the USA’s enemy – whose willingness to negotiate revealed a need to negotiate that should have made American concessions superfluous – was contractually released to continue its resistance throughout the region. Instead of having at last duly disempowered the Iranian troublemaker, the Obama administration had in this way made permanent the very regional war situation that it claimed to have steered toward peace through this agreement. The situation was by no means made any more bearable for Trump by the fact that the exemplary Israeli ally showed no sign of even slightly curbing its fight against Iran to the point of capitulation. On the contrary, this merely provided further proof that America by no means had the region under control; rather, it allowed a war situation to persist and escalate – one that, for all the American-backed Israeli firepower, could never end in a peace useful to the USA without decisive action on the part of the USA in the first place. Trump’s termination of the JCPOA in favor of a policy of “maximum pressure” – i.e., comprehensive economic sanctions – was intended to demonstrate to Iran and all other powers with interests in it exactly what the USA does not need to do to disempower Iran: First, it by no means needs to restrict itself to the nuclear weapons issue – with its economic and military powers of extortion, it has the suppression of Iran’s regional proxy war policy in the crosshairs at all times. Secondly, it doesn’t need to decide – yet – on another war in the region, given that Trump is currently in the process of ending the costly “forever wars” that were undertaken in the egregiously selfless spirit of “nation building” – an endeavor that has proven highly unproductive for the US while benefiting its adversaries and the targets of its military interventions. Given Iran’s inescapable dependence on access to US dollars, the Trump administration is absolutely certain: Iran cannot escape the stranglehold of comprehensive financial sanctions, nor can any other power with an interest in the survival of the Iranian regime get around America’s decision. America is certainly not dependent on the cooperation of other major powers or rivals, nor should it be – Trump does not view this as a way to enlist these powers in strengthening and solidifying America’s claim to control. Doing so would only dilute that claim and allow America’s power to be exploited for the benefit of others. Trump demands that his country act with the consistency that alone does justice to its nature as a superpower: Either the USA secures a monopoly on control over the violent events in the region, or it has no control there; either it breaks Iranian resistance single-handedly and through its own strength or it effectively abdicates its status as a world power in this crucial region.
Following this correction to Obama’s nuclear diplomacy – and Joe Biden’s attempt to revive it, which testified to a scandalous weakness – Trump decided, at the start of his second term, to make significant progress in his own quest for peace. And not merely with an eye toward foreign wars and the hope of an official honor from Oslo. Trump has since come to realize that the coercive effect of American sanctions – coupled with the deterrent effect of American military power – is not enough on its own to force Iran to capitulate. But he also doesn’t see himself compelled to go to war by Iran’s proven resilience and its progress on the nuclear issue. The lesson Trump has drawn in his second term is rather that he sees himself free to make war. The necessity recognized by Trump – that economic strangulation and the “mere” threat of military force are not enough – is, in any case, indistinguishable from his gleefully celebrated certainty that the USA’s military capabilities constitute a uniquely powerful and freely deployable means of forcing submission. This, of course, presupposes the political will to deploy this military power in precisely a way that allows it to function as such a means. In this spirit, last summer Trump transformed his Israeli partner’s “Rising Lion” into a “Midnight Hammer,”[2] which achieved two goals at once: On the one hand, the use of uniquely destructive US bombs severely set back Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons and left the country largely defenseless against further attacks. The futility of resistance, thus demonstrated, then provided a wonderful basis for swift and frictionless negotiations regarding Iran’s unconditional surrender. On the other hand, the use of bombs brought the military campaign against Iran firmly under American control and freed the US not merely to deploy its military might in support of its Israeli partner, but rather – the other way around – to claim Israel’s will and capacity for war as a means of satisfying a purely American need for war and to end the war entirely at America’s discretion. So it became a nice, manageable 12-day war that confirmed America as the undisputed master of war and peace in the region. On this basis, diplomacy with Iran could once again come into its own: Trump offered Iran the chance to fully meet America’s demands and thus avoid the war that the Americans had proved they are willing to wage. This meant a definitive renunciation of uranium enrichment, of the development and production of new types of ballistic missiles – which, even without nuclear weapons, would make Iran formidable in war and thus an intolerable regional power – as well as support for its regional proxies. In practical terms, this is what would secure a genuine peace: Iran’s defenselessness – that is, the de facto surrender of its sovereignty, diplomatically ratified by the Iranian side.
The fact that Iran nevertheless refused to give up these last means of its self-assertion – that is, that the summer’s military campaign was still not enough to demonstrate to Iran the futility of its sovereign self-assertion – reportedly came as a big surprise to the Trump administration.[3] It responded to this by taking a lesson from its military operation: whatever Iran needs to come to its senses, America has a whole lot to offer; and that’s precisely why the Trump administration has no reason to fear becoming unproductively entangled in a fruitless war. Thus, Trump rapidly and consistently arrived at a position that shifts from condemnation of his predecessors’ “forever wars” to utter contempt for their inability to win them. Or, as his vice president would later put it when asked about the difference between this new war and the hated anti-terror wars of his predecessors: “We have a smart president, whereas in the past, we had dumb presidents.” America therefore needs a war that is waged in such a way that the war’s objective – an unquestioned American monopoly over the use of force in this region so crucial to global politics – is always evident as a principle of the warfare itself: as complete sovereignty over the use of force.
A war that achieves its goal on the very first day
Accordingly, the USA, together with its exemplary, combat-ready ally Israel, staged the first act of the war: another round of “shock and awe,” with the small twist that it demonstrated to Iran the extent to which its fate has already been long decided by others.
This meant, first, a further decimation of Iran’s defensive capabilities. On the front, Trump could declare after a month of war that the war had been completed:
“We are systematically dismantling the regime’s ability to threaten America or project power outside of their borders. That means eliminating Iran's navy, which is now absolutely destroyed, hurting their air force and their missile program at levels never seen before, and annihilating their defense industrial base. We’ve done all of it. Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten. Taken together, these actions will cripple Iran’s military, crush their ability to support terrorist proxies, and deny them the ability to build a nuclear bomb.” (Trump, April 1, 2026)
This includes the effectiveness – celebrated by the Trump administration – of airstrikes against the country’s civilian infrastructure: bridges, railways, power plants, etc. – essentially everything required for the functioning of the Iranian economy and the survival of the regime and its people. And indeed always with the emphasis that this was merely a sample – albeit a harsh one – of what the US military is still capable of and prepared to do in this regard.
At the same time that the country’s political and military leadership is being eliminated down to at least the third tier of command, Trump provides the most appropriate success announcement from the front with a passing crack about how difficult it is to find any surviving contacts who could sign the required declaration of surrender. With as much flippancy, Washington looks forward to the inevitable surrender of its decapitated and dismembered enemy; and it is equally carefree in noting the failure of an immediate surrender to materialize. The USA – Trump is certain of this, and he makes a point of emphasizing this – has the country completely under control.
In the case of such an overwhelmingly superior military operation, there can be no talk of a “war” in the true sense of the word. The Trump administration insists on this for a programmatic reason which has nothing to do with avoiding potential obstruction from the US Congress, which, under the US Constitution, has to give official approval to military operations after 60 days of hostilities. Declaring an official “war” would imply a degree of respect for the enemy’s military capabilities – as well as for the laws regulating warfare – which the Department of War demonstratively rejects. This is not a war being waged against a comparable, let alone equal, adversary, but rather a mere criminal and a ridiculous wimp is being beaten down: “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.” (Hegseth) Given the absolutely asymmetrical nature of the attack, this war should therefore take place like the deployment of a “global police force”: one assumes a clear relationship of subjugation in order to end a breach of the peace that, while bothersome to the dominant power, by no means challenges it. At the same time, however, this operation must under no circumstances be misunderstood as a global police measure in the sense that it would serve a higher law for which the Trump administration would consider itself responsible on behalf of the international community. Trump sees it the other way around: the claim to such a supranational law merely serves as a legalistic and illegitimate protective shield against American supremacy. He, by contrast, seeks only to defend the supreme global object of protection: global recognition of the USA’s right to determine both the balance of power and the use of force by other states according to its own needs. In this respect, the Trump administration’s approach to the Iran case is indeed about enforcing a “general prohibition on the use of violence.” But certainly not the prohibition on violence that the states of the world think they have institutionalized within the UN, at least in principle and as an ideal – as a supranational prerequisite for their political and economic relations, the contradictions of which are supposed to be channeled into the peaceful arena of a competition between locations for capital. Trump has no time for the use of force that such a harmonious world order requires – and which has proven to be as enduring as it is enormous. For him, it allows for far too much discord because it pays too little heed to the national needs of the country that is the greatest state power of all, thus implying too little respect for its superior power. The fact that this respect can be the sole logical condition for peaceful international relations, that therefore America can claim a very general right to watch out for its own supremacy and nothing else – with this sense of entitlement Trump sets to work in Iran.
He turns out to be to be strikingly undogmatic on the question of whether the disempowerment of the mullah regime in the face of American security claims must mean the end of its power over its own people. If the Iranian people want this and manage to achieve it, then they certainly enjoy the blessing of the USA – presented with corresponding amounts of pathos. Then they should calmly use the US-Israeli decapitation and evisceration of the regime as an opportunity and liberate themselves. But if, conversely, the meek, and thus most certainly “more pragmatic” remnants of the regime, wish to spare themselves from this fate, then that’s ok too. The only thing that matters – and this is, of course, absolutely essential – is the active recognition of American supremacy, the sober realization of the futility of any alternative to surrendering and lining up with American demands – as well as the ability to make this realization the valid guiding principle of all governance. In any case, the Trump team has no intention of embarking on a new round of “nation building”; indeed, it condemns that as – of all things – the abandonment of America’s own claim to these states; as the selfless assumption of governing responsibilities that the defeated nations ought to handle themselves so that they can reliably put their rule at the service of the victorious power. For the Trump administration, there is no doubt about it: when it comes to securing a pro-American world of states, there is no substitute for, and no handy complement to, pure subjugation – to the imperative of obedience, with destruction as the only alternative. That, and that alone, is what must be enforced in Iran through an exemplary use of bombs.
So much for Trump’s serious desire for peace. The war required to achieve it is, of course, far from over.
Iran’s counteroffensive is hurting the USA –
both on the ground and in American public opinionIran is striking back with the “asymmetric means” still at its disposal. With the missiles and drones launched by Iran and its allied militias in Iraq and Lebanon, it is dealing significant blows to US forces and the numerous US bases from which the US “projects” its title claim to the region, to its Israeli war partner, and to the energy export infrastructure of the US-allied Gulf states. And by imposing a military blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, Iran effectively closes the most important sea route for oil exports from the Persian Gulf, through which the Gulf states handle the lion’s share of their energy exports and through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquid natural gas, as well as all sorts of other critical goods, are transported. In this way, Iran manages to destroy American weapons, strains the shield with which the USA secures its freedom of military action in the region, paralyzes the Gulf states’ economies, and demonstrates to “consumer nations” all over the world what it means for them when the USA presumes to enforce a monopoly on matters of “freedom and security” in the region against Iran.
The American homeland itself, for all that, remains completely unscathed. Yet Americans deeply resent the president for the damage caused by the war. They mourn the loss of a handful of soldiers and the many, many weapons that had once exerted such a beautifully convincing deterrent effect in the region, but are now gone. And not just in that region, but everywhere else where the USA’s freedom and security must be safeguarded by military means – in other words, everywhere. There is also concern about the further damage the war is inflicting on America’s alliances, both in the region and in Europe – even more economic and military power squandered that the USA has used so effectively and needs now more than ever. People are demanding that Trump provide a full and unsparing account of just how much war damage the US military has actually suffered and what, consequently, must, at a minimum, be replaced. Above all, people want to know exactly how much of the promised and celebrated destructive success has actually occurred – in other words, to what extent Iran has truly become the pathetic weakling that the War Department likes to mock. The politically mature people of a superpower just won’t let itself, at least since Vietnam, be conned into believing propaganda about success any more. The president’s famously infamous, insistent success stories regarding the beautifully done destruction of Iran are increasingly viewed as insufferable because they are increasingly implausible; people want to see proof of success in black and white, and they even expect it at the gas pump and on their shopping receipts. As the damage mounts, the promised surrender of the enemy drags on, and the war seems less and less worthwhile to more and more Americans, fueling the suspicion that it never should have happened in the first place – yet another “war of choice” that now threatens to turn into a “forever war,” even though the nation is so united in its resolve to wage only necessary and successful wars from now on.
Trump’s answer (I) – an even more decisive declaration of success at home
Trump doesn’t take the criticism from his nation too badly – he isn’t caught off guard enough for that. If anything, it confirms him in how right he is to overhaul the whole war scenario in the Gulf and the way the US establishment has handled it for decades. In this respect, his critics are once again only exposing themselves: as a remake of the shameful – though at least no longer governing – willingness to come to terms with the Iranian threat while catering to both allied and hostile nations that freeload off America’s strength. All in all, it’s a mindset of weakness that has no place under Trump and no longer has a chance in his country. Even so, Trump makes a recognizable effort to speak in a language that will definitely be understood by his not very perceptive compatriots.
The first point to clarify is this: The war against Iran is necessary because the USA can be neither free nor secure as long as another hostile nation – especially one in this region and of this caliber – can feel free and secure from American power. That would be precisely the “forever” war situation that a great America can’t afford under any circumstances. That, and nothing else, is what the military and economic strength of the USA is for – not to be spared, but deployed. Certainly, there are costs involved: soldiers get killed while killing others and the means of war are destroyed while destroying things – but for all the cost issues, America has a remedy called the dollar, the envy of the whole world. America’s allies exist for this and no other purpose – not to constrain America’s freedom to wage war, but to reinforce it by inflicting damage on America’s enemies and, in turn, sustaining damage themselves. If this strains the alliances, then that speaks not against their decisive use, but against the quality of the alliance; there is a lack of clear subordination that the balance of power within the alliance presupposes. Alliances either exist to serve the freedom of American warfare or they are worthless. The energy independence finally achieved by America serves this same freedom – not merely to enrich more Texans and make life easier for US motorists, but to grant them the freedom and security that American power gains when it can largely meet its own energy needs.
The second point to clarify is this: America’s military and economic capabilities are not only there for all this, but they are also extremely good. To illustrate this, Trump points – on the one hand – at the condition to which the USA has long since reduced its Iranian enemy: extensively devastated and completely incapable of continuing to defend itself without inviting further destruction from the USA; in any case, its anti-American raison d’état, as it has been practiced for decades, has been forcibly suspended. The only options left to the government in Tehran are to acknowledge its own powerlessness, to meet America’s demands to the satisfaction of the Trump administration, and – as the quid pro quo in this deal – to be allowed to survive. Or it can refuse such an admission, but then be punished constantly with new rounds of devastation for every hint of unauthorized movement. On the other hand, Trump points at the state of the means and foundations of America’s power themselves: at growth and stock market figures that show no significant decline for America anywhere; at a national debt that remains an unrivaled and highly sought-after investment vehicle, denominated in a currency that is simply indispensable for the functioning of global capital markets; and at inflation figures that do not carry any further weight because – and here the US president, for once, agrees with his critics – they are truly only a consequence of the war, the successful conclusion of which is within reach because Trump has long since gotten his enemy under control. The Trump administration is addressing the costs of the war accordingly: with a massive increase in the funds allocated for the war, as well as an unprecedented increase in the overall military budget – which, according to the Trump team, was long overdue anyway, in order for the USA to be the military power – again – it should be. This military buildup is not out of necessity, but dictated by the very nature of America.
Trump can therefore be certain that he is dealing with a malicious deception regarding who is actually in an unbearable predicament here; what makes it all the worse is that his critics apparently even believe the desperate calls to hold out from a shattered remnant of the Iranian regime. But even that is probably no surprise to him, nor does he consider it particularly troubling. For Trump, Iran’s defeat is not only inevitable but essentially already a reality – all that’s missing from its surrender is the ceremonial signature.
Trump’s answer (II) – a sovereign interplay of threats of war and diplomatic overtures
That signature is absolutely essential to ending the war – Trump insists on this with a great deal of “epic fury.” But for Trump, it is no longer decisive for the outcome of the war. The Iranian regime is finished; the only question that remains is whether it wants to spare itself from further destruction. Six weeks after the beginning of the war, Trump informs Iran’s rulers of the inevitability of their overdue declaration of surrender in the form of the threat that the USA’s capacity and willingness to destroy are far from exhausted, but in fact have no upper limit. When it comes to the superlatives required for this, Trump is completely in his element:
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World.” (Trump, April 7, 2026)
On the night in question, it’s then “found out” that for Trump the shooting won’t need to continue if Iran declares itself ready to negotiate. As long as the obvious is beyond doubt for Iran’s smarter leaders – that there is no alternative to the unconditional fulfillment of his demands and that the only thing to be negotiated is how Iran intends to seal its defenselessness in order to avoid further destruction – Trump is quite happy to pause the use of weapons for a while and move on to a phase of negotiations.
From the very beginning of the ceasefire, the Trump administration has demonstrated remarkable sovereignty on the question of how the truce and the negotiations taking place within its framework are to be understood. Trump has stated, for example, that the UAE’s direct attacks on Iranian refineries and export facilities have nothing to do with the USA; that the retaliatory strikes against US allies in the Gulf fall far short of constituting a breach of the ceasefire; that, contrary to the agreement reached in Pakistan, the ceasefire does not affect the Israeli war in Lebanon; that Israel should, at least on paper, maintain the peace for a while if Iran requires this to facilitate its surrender to America; that the US attempt to force the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz with warships is not to be regarded as an act of war; and that the Iranian threats against the incoming US forces do not compel the Trump administration to resume shooting. Instead, the US is demonstrating to Iran just how impossible it is to avoid the conflict’s inevitable outcome – which has already been decided – through a blockade: If Iran drives up the price that America and the world must pay to fight against Iran, then America will simply ensure through a counter-blockade that Iran can’t collect that price. Trump does not even allow the Iranian regime sovereignty over its own stance on the war or the peace negotiations. Instead, he combines the wildest threats of escalation with glowing reports of success in regards to how effective those threats are, and how desperate Iran is for a deal that would seal the renunciation of all its nuclear capabilities – and thus its ultimate defenselessness against American power.
It’s perhaps fair, but strange nonetheless: as the ceasefire drags on and as his own reckless messages on the status of things also become increasingly monotonous with their frequency, global public opinion takes the extent to which Trump demonstrates, of all things, persistence as the chance to do to the US president what he regularly takes the liberty of doing to his Iranian opponent: One simply attributes to him the opposite of whatever he says and does. The accusation that Trump, of all people, has entangled his nation in yet another “forever war” is combined with the diagnosis that he is in an increasingly desperate search for a way out of the war. The charge of having instigated a completely unnecessary war out of stubbornness and delusions of omnipotence accompanies the suspicion that Trump needs some definition of the situation as soon as possible that would allow the war to end without embarrassing him in front of his critics. The role that Trump plays so convincingly – so much so that one might suspect it isn’t a role at all – is that of a president who is certain he possesses not only immense power, but also a great deal of time. For him, this war is not a “forever war,” because it is not a question of duration, but quality: any war that does not demonstrate on a daily basis the will and capacity to enforce a true world peace – namely, the unconditional surrender of all enemies and the submissive compliance of everyone else – has lasted far too long from the very first day. A war that accepts nothing less than this result and embodies this spirit can easily last as long as the peace that such a stance effectively establishes: the unconditional respect for the power of the USA to compel useful services. To seek a contrast between peace and war in this context is fundamentally mistaken; these are two intimately related phases of the same American sovereignty over world affairs.
In that sense, Trump is all ears when it comes to the complaints he gets to hear from all sides – from regional neighbors and allies, from NATO and other partners, and generally from all the nations awaiting the goods that pass through the Strait of Hormuz every day in peacetime – about the ever rising costs of the war. He hears them loud and clear, but to him they all boil down to one problem – one that isn’t his problem at all, but solely that of the complainers themselves. And this problem only indicates to him once again just how much these countries have always profited from an American problem that Trump now wants to eliminate once and for all. If the whole world is suffering so terribly because the USA is cleaning up the Iran mess, then that shows him, conversely, just how much the whole world has settled into a war situation that exists entirely because the US has until now been unwilling to bring this region fully under its control and to charge the necessary price for that from itself as well as from everyone else. Just how unbearable America’s Iran problem is for them, how powerless they are in the face of it when America takes action, how much they must therefore be interested in seeing its demands met and America finally enjoying its peace – they should finally realize this now in the Strait of Hormuz. And as for resolving the problem they have with the double blockade, they should go ahead and take care of it – at their own expense, but luckily with American help as well. Thanks to the American war, one thing is now beyond doubt: America is definitely above it all and will intervene if its sovereignty, its monopoly on deals affecting American interests, is in any way impinged. This is not merely being demonstrated in the case of Iran, but now realized – another step in the establishment of the new US imperialism.
* That’s precisely why, conversely, no country in this wonderfully vibrant corner of the world needs to wait for Iran to sign a declaration of surrender in order to achieve the peace for which the USA has already invested so many means of war. The spirit of the Trumpian Peace Council shows the way: Under Trump’s leadership, all the states in the region – both friends and foes – have the duty and receive the offer to be part of a peace that can only be described in superlatives:
“Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iran are proceeding nicely! It will only be a Great Deal for all or, no Deal at all — Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before — And nobody wants that! … after all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords [on the ‘normalization’ of relations with Israel]. Those Countries discussed are Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates (already a Member!), Qatar, Pakistan, Türkiye, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain (already a Member!)... It will be a Document respected like no other that has ever been signed, anywhere in the World. Its level of Importance and Prestige will be unparalleled! … Nothing in the past, or in the future, will surpass it. Therefore, I am mandatorily requesting that all Countries immediately sign the Abraham Accords, and that, if Iran signs its Agreement with me, as President of the United States of America, it would be an Honor to have them also be part of this unparalleled World Coalition.” (Trump on Truth Social, May 25, 2026)
It’s amazing that Trump ever let himself be talked into naming it after “Abraham.”
[1] See also the article in GegenStandpunkt 2-2018: “Comments on D. Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran.”
[2] See the article from GegenStandpunkt 3-2025: “Chronicle of an announced peace: Trump’s 12-day war in the Middle East.”
[3] Regarding the President’s thought process, Special Envoy Witkoff explained to Fox News: “He [Trump] is curious as to why they [the Iranians] haven’t ... I don't want to use the word ‘capitulated’, but why they haven't capitulated. Why, under this sort of pressure, with the amount of sea power and naval power that we have over there, why haven’t they come to us and said, ‘We profess that we don’t want a weapon, so here’s what we’re prepared to do?’”