How Trump’s Know-Nothing Arrogance Brought This War on Himself

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In May of 2018, Donald Trump cancelled United States participation in the 2015 agreement that limited Iran’s nuclear development. in return, Iran got sanctions relief. The pact — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA — had been forged between Iran, the United States, and five other countries — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — with the full European Union signing on as well. Acting entirely on his own, ignoring those allies, Trump had America go back on its word.

This view, from Discovery/Alert, shows the Strait of Hormuz with internal captioning informing that 20% of the world’s oil passes through the strait and 75% for four Asia nations. (Click to expand)

He has always called the agreement terrible. He underscored that view again at the beginning of March:

“I was very proud to have knocked out the Iran nuclear deal by President Barack Hussein Obama. That was a horrible, horrible, dangerous document. They were on the road to getting [a nuclear weapon] legitimately, through a deal that was signed foolishly by our country.”

In his lazy ignorance not to learn what went before, he cancelled a deal that did the opposite — prevented uranium enrichment required for a bomb. He restored sanctions instead. So he put Iran on the road; Iran resumed uranium enrichment bringing several hundred pounds up to 60%, a short hop below bomb grade. And now, to stop them, he has without prior analysis, without any strategy, blundered the United States into a war that he doesn’t know how to get out of.

here’s what to know about what he threw away

For a span of variously 10 to 15 years, the 2015 accord subjected Iran to an inspection regime of the various sites where Iran was enriching uranium. It provided that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would have “regular access to all of Iran’s nuclear facilities” and “suspicious sites of allegations or a covert enrichment facility, centrifuge production facility, or yellowcake production facility anywhere in the country”. The Ayatollah ruled out military bases, a problem because one major military site, Parchin, was suspected of conducting research on nuclear weapons.

Then as now, Iran insisted that nuclear research must be allowed to continue. After at first demanding that most of Iran’s 19,000 centrifuges used for that purpose be destroyed, the alliance had to concede that 5,060 less efficient, first generation machines could remain in service during a 10-year span, and the rest need only be idled.

Iran went back on agreeing to ship its already enriched uranium out of the country, presumably to Russia, presumably to be converted to rods for use in power plants. The alliance yielded to that too, with the proviso that the stocks be diluted and held for 15 years at an enriched level of no more than 3.67%.

In return, the sanctions under which Iran had strained for six years would be lifted and about $100 billion of Iran’s own funds frozen by the West would be returned. Iran tried to get sanctions relief and return of funds returned upon signing,
A map from Al Jazeera that plots ships stranded awaiting reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

but Obama said they must be staged in parallel with Iran living up to its agreements.

It took 20 months of negotiations to arrive at these terms, with the consortium forced to yield to numerous concessions as seen, making clear how obdurate the Iranians are to deal with. But what the agreement said, and what Donald Trump tossed into the trash, was:

“Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.”

The entire objective of the Obama administration and its negotiating partner countries was to forestall the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, with the possibility that after the 10 and 15 years the threat of a return to sanctions would encourage the Iranians to extend the agreement. The key goal of the accord was to increase the “breakout” time it would take for Iran, should they tear up the deal, to produce enough fissile material needed for a bomb from three months to a year or more.

Three years into the agreement, with the IAEA confirming Iran’s compliance through regular inspections, Trump cancelled and re-imposed sanctions, saying he would negotiate a much better agreement, but he did nothing.

Iran is that breakout point now, thanks to Trump, with its uranium enriched to 60%, which is why Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu pressed for war.

peace in our time

Vice President JD Vance was sent to Pakistan a week ago. That country had brokered a 14-day ceasefire. Along with him was Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump pal Steve Witkoff – neither of them in the government and possessing only whatever on-the-job experience two real estate guys may have acquired. Not a single State Department negotiator in sight.

Wendy Sherman, deputy secretary in the Obama administration undersecretary of State John Kerry, was one of the lead negotiators a dozen years ago. Interviewed last week, she described in contrast their team…

“that included nuclear physicists, sanctions experts, lawyers, commerce experts, people from our national labs, and energy experts. Secretary Kerry, who knew every single detail as did President Obama, spent 19 days in the Palais Coburg in Vienna. Ernie Moniz, our secretary of energy, a nuclear physicist, spent all of that time negotiating this deal.”

Vance seemed to think a deal might be struck over a weekend. After a 21-hour marathon, he reported that…

”We just could not get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms. We leave here with a very simple proposal, a method of understanding that is our final and best offer.”

Relinquish control of the strait, give up nuclear ambitions, transfer the enriched uranium out of the country, cease production of ballistic missiles are undoubtedly in the unpublished list of demands that Vance calls a “final and best offer” he thinks Iran should have accepted without objection. To be sure, Iran’s terms are equally unacceptable. There was no negotiation.

the critics

The signing of the accord in 2015 prompted a deluge of criticism. Opponents argued that we should have held out for a better deal, voiced by many in Congress, many of whom probably were not even aware that 20 months of grudging negotiations had taking place. Surely Iran would have been only too obliging to return to the table if we simply asked for a better deal.

The agreement failed to curtail Iran’s research and development of ballistic missiles. The return of Iran’s money would pay for support of its terrorist proxies in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. All true, but critics seemed to know nothing of the talks, punctuated as they were by disputes and walkouts and repeated deadline extensions as negotiators fought over final terms and language. Exasperated negotiators hearing these complaints knew full well that if those demands had been added, there would have been no deal.

Netanyahu fought the deal and in an affront to President Obama went before a joint session of Congress, which he views as his lobby, where he was greeted by its members as delirious in their bellowed adulation as “teenagers keening for the Beatles at Shea”. He warned that the agreement “paves Iran’s path to a bomb” in 10 to 15 years. Somehow that was the danger, not that Iran would set its centrifuges spinning again now were there no deal. Netanyahu set about contacting American Jews directly, telling them the deal would give Iran “hundreds of bombs tomorrow”. Did that happen? He told the Jewish community he rejects the deal “because I want to prevent war”. Did war happen? Not until today when Trump followed Netanyahu into the war that Bibi has in fact always lobbied fo.

The U.S. and its allies got all they could from a prideful and fanatical theocracy. World War II triumphs engendered hubris in 250-year-old America that other nations are acting out of turn if they don’t follow our directives. Iran – Persia – is ten times older, dating from as early as seventh century BC and boasting history’s famous conquerors, notably Cyrus the Great and Darius I. Said Amir Mohebbian, advisor to Iran’s lead negotiator at the time, “In the end, we want to lead the Muslim world”. That’s who we were dealing with.

alternate realities

We would be in year 11 of the 10 to 15 year agreement (with some elements extending as far as 25 years), with Iran surely attempting to cheat but unable to make much progress in the face of continuous IAEA inspections. Free of sanctions, Iran, along with other gulf nations, would be calmly sending over a hundred ships through the strait every day.

Instead, what do we have? In retaliation for the U.S. and Israel aborting negotiations and bludgeoning Iran, sinking its
navy, destroying an unverified percentage of its missile and drone production, killing its leadership and uncounted civilians, Iran attacked Israel and all six of the gulf countries with a barrage of missiles targeting infrastructure and civilians just as we did. They blocked the strait except for their own tankers leading the U.S. to blockade theirs, hit upon the idea of charging tolls, insist on reparations, evacuation of all U.S. forces from the region, and more. Which says that if negotiations are to continue, we have inspired a new set of demands beyond any of 2015 for the U.S. somehow to surmount. Additionally, Iran knows the U.S. cannot be trusted; they saw the American president simply cancel the 2015 agreement.

In the hopes of keeping oil prices down, the U.S. even lifted sanctions for Iran to sell its oil, giving it millions to pay for its war against us. The same for Russia, with Vladimir Putin in disbelief of his good fortune. We’re solving the Kremlin’s increasing money problems with the bonanza of selling its oil and fertilizer openly — and at elevated wartime prices.

This is what Trump’s stupidity has wrought by his mindless action in 2018.

open for now

On Friday, Iran announced that the Hormuz Strait is now “completely open” to commercial traffic, Israel having met Iran’s condition of a ceasefire with Lebanon. President Trump exulted far too prematurely that the deal is “a great victory”. In fact, Iran requires ships to obtain permission from Iran’s all-powerful Revolutionary Guard go through and they must take the route around Larak Island, closest to Iran’s shore. Vessels attempting passage were hailed and turned back for lack of that permission. Moreover, the U.S. has not ended its blockade and intention of seizing Iranian shipping worldwide. Iran says if that continues, it will close the Strait again.
If negotiations are to continue — if Trump can contain his desire to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age, where they belong” — the U.S./Iran ceasefire will need to be extended for months, so far apart are the two sides. Do our inept negotiators — Vance, Kushner, Witkoff — realize yet how much they will have to yield? Does Trump? And will our supposed ally Israel, in the form of Netanyahu, who kept crucially needed oil and fertilizer from Asian countries for two weeks by refusing to stop hammering Lebanon, is he likely to resume the killing and blow apart the ceasefire that really matters?

Notes on Trump’s War

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With the clock already ticking on the meager two-week ceasefire, Vice-President JD Vance is in Pakistan
Saturday to begin talks with Iran. The negotiations will go nowhere, but Vance doesn’t know this.
His blustering on the tarmac shows he knows nothing of our dealings with Iran that began some 15 years ago that went on not for two weeks but four years. Ask John Kerry, who led the negotiations resulting in the nuclear agreement with Iran of 2015. But Vance assures us:

”If the Iranians are willing in good faith to work with us, I think we can make an agreement. If they’re gonna lie, if they’re gonna cheat,…then they’re not going to be happy, because what the President has showed is that we still have clear, military, diplomatic and maybe most importantly, we have extraordinary economic leverage… They’re gonna find out that the President of the United States is not one to mess around. He’s impatient. He’s impatient to make progress. He has told us to negotiate in good faith and I think that if they negotiate in good faith, we will be able to find a deal.”

Iran has the upper hand. They have no interest whatever in catering to Trump’s impatience.

where are our allies?

A reporter said to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt…

“A joint statement put out this morning [Wednesday] by some of America’s European allies, our NATO allies. They said, regarding the Strait of Hormuz, our governments will contribute to ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Leavitt’s response:

”I have a direct quote from the president: ‘They were tested and they failed’. And I would add that it’s quite sad that NATO turned their backs on the American people over the course of the last six weeks.”

Trump will be using this episode to push for withdrawal from NATO as he has done with a welter of international alliances in his drive to isolate the United States from the world.

Trump has attacked Iran along with Israel without any evident prior consultation with European allies, setting the Middle East afire with no plan, with reckless assumptions, throwing the world economy into chaos. There was of course no reason for the NATO countries to come running when Trump discovered he needed help, especially as Trump served up insults which stiffened their resolve not to join.

He had proposed for allied nations the most dangerous work of all: using their warships to escort oil tankers through the Strait where they would be easy prey for Iranian missiles, drones, mines, and speedboats packed with explosives. “Last time I checked there was supposed to be a big bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that”, was Defense Secretary’s Pete Hegseth’s schoolboy taunt that made certain allies would give him the middle finger. Chris Matthews on the “Morning Joe” cable show stated the allies’ reaction more emphatically than most across the Internet:

”We didn’t start this stupid war. You did. You did it on your own, Mr. Big S**t…along with your new best friend Bibi Netanyahu.”

New York Times Refutes Trump in How War Started

With animosity toward Israel growing amidst the American public, Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised hackles when he said right after the start of the war that the U.S. only attacked Iran on learning that Israel was planning an attack, which posed an ‘imminent threat’ to U.S. troops in the area that Iran would likely target.

President Trump, having none of the notion that we followed Israel, countered Rubio saying that we attacked Iran in the belief that they were about to attack U.S. forces in the region, for which there is no evidence.

The matter was settled this week by a New York Times article that reported a February 12th meeting at the White House where Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his military and intelligence team made a presentation to persuade Trump to join Israel’s planned attack. Israel said, according to The Times…

“Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.

Besides, Mossad’s intelligence indicated that street protests inside Iran would begin again.”

“Sounds good to me”, said the president.

Retired United States Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, who served as commanding general of United States Army Europe for most of 2011 and 2012, made the point that once the president speaks in a White House meeting, the others in the room usually fall silent. He cited a meeting preparatory to Operation Desert Storm in which President George H. W. Bush said not a word during the entire run-through of the attack plan and discussion, and only then asked questions and voiced any determination. Trump, in his undisciplined lack of deliberative ability, by immediately blurting out “Sounds good to me”, effectively foreclosed discussion.

There were subsequent meetings. Speaking for his intelligence analysts, with their “deep expertise in U.S. military capabilities” and knowledge of Iran “inside out”, CIA Director John Ratcliffe called the Israeli prediction of an uprising of the Iranian public leading to regime change “farcical”, which Marco Rubio seemed to think needed translating for the president: “In other words, it’s bullshit,” he said.

Trump, though, seemed already persuaded. The Times report said Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine told Trump…

“Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”

…and warned that a major campaign would drastically deplete weapons stocks, especially including interceptors, already strained after years of support of Ukraine and Israel. Caine told Trump that securing the Strait would be enormously difficult, but as was reported by The Wall Street Journal before the Times exposé, Mr. Trump thought the regime would capitulate before Iran would block the waterway.

The president appeared to think it would be a very quick war — an impression that had been reinforced by the tepid response to the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June. But that was entirely different — a single strike at isolated locations, not a sustained bombing throughout the country. How could Trump have possibly equated them?

The Times account said that Hegseth was expectedly all for war; Rubio was ambivalent, preferring resumption of Trump’s first term “maximum pressure” campaign; Vance — who had made it known that he was against all such war adventuring — described a war with Iran as “a huge distraction of resources” and “massively expensive” saying “You know I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I’ll support you.”

Lebanon not included?

The ceasefire almost imploded on its first day when Iran said the Strait of Hormuz would remain blocked for Israel’s continuing to strike Iran ally Lebanon. The U.S. said halting Israel’s war with its neighbor was not part of the deal. A post from Iran’s deputy foreign minister stated that…

“The Iran-U.S. Ceasefire terms are clear and explicit: the U.S must choose – ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both.”

…and he re-posted the communiqué from go-between Pakistan who had brokered the deal:

”With the greatest humility, I am pleased to announce that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America, along with their allies, have agreed to an immediate ceasefire everywhere including Lebanon and elsewhere, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.”

Yet there was JD Vance saying:

”I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise… What we said is that the ceasefire would be focused on Iran and the ceasefire would be focused on America’s allies both Israel and the Gulf Arab states. That said, the Israelis, as I understand it, have actually offered to be, frankly, to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful.”

On that very day Israel launched the most savage attack on Lebanon in its current war: a hundred air strikes causing over 300 deaths.

There it is in the Pakistani statement that the ceasefire included Lebanon, yet Vance put forth his lopsided claim that Israel could go on bombing Iran ally Lebanon. Iran, on the other hand, must hold its fire against “America’s allies both Israel and the Gulf Arab states”, says the U.S. demand. Not a promising start for the negotiations.

Given the proof by The Times that Israel drew Trump into this disastrous war, costly on so many fronts, what does it say about Trump that he didn’t react with furor, grabbing the phone to Netanyahu to order him to stop bombing Lebanon at once! Does Israel owe nothing in return? Someone apparently advised Trump finally to do so; Netanyahu made an announcement this past Thursday that it would call a halt. We will now see if Iran will let all ships through.

keeping the right misinformed

The White House, the Pentagon, and right-wing commentators are irate that our European allies didn’t join the fight.

“They love America taking action when it suits their needs. But, when we’re the ones who want help, no, don’t count on them”

…said Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. We corrected her with…

“Eight NATO countries came to assist the U.S. in Afghanistan after 9/11. The only instance when NATO Article 5 was triggered was to help the U.S.”

But she would say it again; it’s a key meme for the right’s keeping with Trump’s anti-Europe stance. Ingraham asked a guest…

“How much damage was done to our relationship with NATO when it’s clear that they will not act decisively in a crisis and President Trump, I think, is utterly disgusted.”

Tom Sauer, identified as a former Navy surface warfare officer, answered:

”He has every right to be. If you think about it, remember that NATO was originally created to keep the Germans down, the Russians out, and the Americans in…[W]e’ve got some very strong NATO partners in northern and eastern Europe but the ones in western Europe, I mean, they have been riding on our back for all their defense. I really have a hard time seeing where they get off thinking they can’t be a part of this alliance, but we’ll still go fund their war in Ukraine.”

We quote this nonentity as an example of the biased and wrong propaganda that plays on Fox to keep its audience prejudiced and misinformed.

First, you’d think Europe didn’t fund Ukraine at all from what he says, whereas it is the U.S. who no longer does. The U.S. under Trump ceased assistance to Ukraine throughout 2025, as tracked by the Kiel Institute. It is Europe that now funds Ukraine entirely. Second, no mention that the Biden administration’s feeding Ukraine weapons served to gravely damaged our adversary, Russia, depleting its economy and eliminating over a million of its manpower.

Third, Trump is now funding Russia, harming Ukraine by lifting sanctions on its sale of oil — and at Iran War inflated prices, a windfall that pays for its war against Ukraine. Fourth, he undercuts his argument by his reason of NATO’s founding; how does that have anything to do with Iran?

If you watch Fox, Newsmax, OAN, this is the steady diet that divides the nation. Is the left biased as on MS NOW? Sure, but the difference is, they may suppress uncomfortable topics, but for what they cover, they don’t have to lie.

days of infamy, this time ours

You may not have seen the full tweets that Trump issued on Truth Social in the run up to his deadline for “decimating” Iran if it refused to open the Strait, so here they are:

Trump, impetuously and with destructive damage to whatever remains of what good reputation our country enjoyed, issues tweets without first learning anything about what he says. In these posts he was plotting war crimes with likely no knowledge of what constitutes a war crime, even having learned nothing from Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine. Whether he knew or not, he showed himself to be the psychopath that has become the general view among those paying any attention.

There is now an outspoken few on the right who speak out against Trump, finally, after so many years: Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, Alex Jones, and Marjorie Taylor Greene — some of them a little nutty in their own right. Here’s Carlson to Trump:

”Who do you think you are? You’re tweeting out the f-word on Easter morning? So, obviously you’re mocking the religion of Iran…[N]o decent person mocks other people’s religions… [T]o mock other people’s faith is to mock the idea of faith itself…The message of all faith at the biggest picture level is the message in our Bible, which is you are not God. And only if you think you are, do you talk this way? [N]o president should mock Islam. That’s not your job. This is not a theocracy. We don’t go to war with other theocracies to find out which theocracy is more effective.”

Marjorie Taylor Green hints at the 25th Amendment:

”How can any person that is mentally stable call for an entire civilization of people to be murdered?…That’s what the president called for, and that shows that there’s serious instability in his thinking, that he would…go to his megaphone, his Truth Social, and post that for the entire country and the entire world…It’s unreal. This should never be tolerated. I know it’s a very difficult hard stretch to see it actually coming through but the conversation needs to be had and he’s out of control. And people within the administration need to step up, take responsibility, and rein this in.”

Megyn Kelly unloaded on Trump:

“I mean, I don’t know about you, but I am sick of the s**t. I’m just, I’m sick of it. Can’t he just behave like a normal human? I mean honestly, like the president, 3D chess, just shut up. F**king shut up about that s**t. You don’t threaten to wipe out an entire civilization. We’re talking about civilians. This is wrong. It’s wrong. He should not be doing it. I don’t care that his negotiating tactic is to kill an entire country full of civilians — men, women, and children. An American president so that the Strait of Hormuz will be opened? It’s just wrong. It’s not hard to say it, it’s not hard to recognize it. I wish he would stop doing this. Like he can’t negotiate without doing this? What does that say about him? What does that say about the position that our country is in right now in these negotiations? He’s gotta say this? He can’t be a dignified, strong leader without threatening a bunch of war crimes?

In a manic post nearly 500 words long, Donald Trump struck back against all of them in a way that confirms everything they had said: “They all have low IQs. They are stupid people”. The message doesn’t get through to the insane.