World / July 16, 2026
A costly and ruinous conflict resumes for no other reason than an octogenarian narcissist’s inability to face reality.
President Donald Trump arrives at the White House on Sunday, July 5, 2026.
(Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Nearly five months after launching its war of choice against Iran, the United States appears no closer to achieving a single meaningful goal than it was when a thwarted President Trump signed what was in effect a strategic surrender on June 17. This intermittent war is a complex story of global economic interdependence, maritime logistics, the rise of drone warfare, nuclear panic, and imperial arrogance. But it is also, increasingly consequentially, the story of an octogenarian narcissist who would rather inflict catastrophic damage on the global economy and his own political party than admit he was wrong.
It would be an illusion to say that the walls are closing in on Trump, who has two and a half years left in his gilded office and who faces no plausible mechanism that could remove him. But he is undoubtedly a deeply diminished, almost pitiful character.
For him, the war in Iran should be just one of the movies playing on a screen in the multiplex of his mind, something he can dip in and out of while he fills his popcorn and opens the doors of other theaters to catch up with the “illegals” who stole the 2020 election but forgot to steal the next one or the pregnant women taking Tylenol. causing autism or woke communists sabotaging the Reflecting Pool or the Deep State preventing it from stencil your name on the Kennedy Center or Marco Rubio acting simultaneously as Trump’s national security advisor, US secretary of state and unelected viceroy of Venezuela. The one thing about Trump Mar-a-Lago Cinema what matters to him is that when he finishes something, it ends instantly at his request.
And that’s why the war in Iran upsets him. The bunkered clerics and hardened military ideologues he unsuccessfully tried to depose with his amateurish imperial fireworks simply refuse to carry out his orders. Iran’s leaders aren’t just stopping the president from making stealing the 2026 election his full-time job. They threaten to transform him, in his own words, in Herbert Hooverwhich are the only two words in the English language apparently capable of get it to back down once he’s decided to do something incredibly stupid and destructive.
This week’s embarrassing sequence of flip-flops, big statements and new releases threats War crimes are just the latest proof that Trump has no idea what he is doing. He shows no interest in implementing the memorandum of understanding he signed at Versailles last month – one that gives clearly Iran has the right to dictate how ships transit the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic shipping chokepoint that was open before Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu decided to capriciously blow it all up. And while the ceasefire fails largely because of his inability to understand the humiliating terms he agreed to, Trump moves from one gimmick to another in a vain and fruitless effort to extricate himself from the consequences of his own failures.
Monday he announcementsuddenly and bizarrely after weeks of relatively low-level violence with Iran, that the United States would now serve as “GUARDIAN OF HORMUZ” and demand repayment for this charitable act by levying a fee equivalent to 20 percent of the value of each ship’s cargo while also blocking Iranian shipping. Like CNN somewhat conveniently put it onthis shine “raises[d] “several questions of legality and feasibility.” Indeed, it is!
Current number
This is probably why, 24 hours later, Trump I went back during the whole bet. He wrote (on Truth Social of course, the National Archives of our time) that because “oil is flowing like never before,” America would accept, instead of the 20 percent fee he invented the day before, “trade and investment deals” from unnamed Gulf countries that will cause “factories, plant and equipment to flow into the United States at historic levels.” He added that Iran can no longer kill protesters and “WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPONS,” a bold statement for someone who just a month ago signed a document granting Iran everything on its geostrategic wish list in exchange for absolutely nothing of substance.
As with everything that comes out of his mouth, one can’t even address the outrageous hallucinations of Trump’s message without first addressing the logical fallacies. If oil is “flowing like never before,” why must the United States serve as “Guardian of Hormuz” in the first place? How can oil reach unprecedented levels if the United States once again imposes a naval blockade on Iranian ports? If America is “the hottest country in the world”, like Trump continues to assert madlywhy does it need the Gulf States to create jobs? How exactly are we going to calculate the exact number of “investment deals” needed to offset the money needed to try and fail to keep the Strait of Hormuz open with the most expensive navy in history? Will we be treated to rebate checks the next time an Emirati potentate finances a luxury condo development in Miami?
You are of course not supposed to ask these questions. You’re just supposed to clap and look away. The problem is that everywhere one turns, the material consequences of this endless buffoonery are visible for all to see. Finger grease was barely dry on Trump’s phone before gas prices shot again and oil futures climbed. The United States has returned to spending hundreds of millions of dollars a day on sophisticated munitions to bomb a country that is successfully defending itself with drones and $7,000 speedboats – all while failing to intimidate Iran’s autocrats or even force them back to the negotiating table.
When Trump signed the memorandum of understanding, there was some hope that an end to this ruinous ordeal was in sight. Surely, after signing such a catastrophic document for the United States; after absorbing the hysterical meows, for weeks, of the lifelong hawks of Beltway Iran, seeing their life’s work vaporized before their eyes; Having finally brought gas prices back to February levels, he wouldn’t blow the deal for no reason, would he? You guessed it, it’s not true. We are now back where we were in early June: global oil stocks are dwindling, prices are soaring, Republican fortunes in the upcoming midterm elections are plummeting, and Iranians are laughing at the spectacular implosion of their former imperial overlords.
For America, the situation remains the same. President Trump can still swallow his immense pride and stick to the deal he signed, granting Iran’s autocrats control of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to the country’s long international economic isolation in exchange for modest, unspecified concessions on their nuclear program. If he does not do so, he can either continue trying, unsuccessfully, to break Tehran’s resolve from the air, or launch a massive ground invasion of a country of 90 million people three months before a national election, which could result in his party’s removal from both houses of Congress.
There are only 30 months left until Mar-a-Lago Cinema closes forever and takes all those gains with it. In the meantime, the president is very, very busy posting on this site, praising the Minnesota gubernatorial campaign of “Pillow Man” Mike Lindell, who is “one of America’s greatest and hardest-working patriots” and photo sharing of himself with Xi Jinping, who probably still can’t believe his luck that this sunset fool has been given four more years in power. Your own attention to this matter, as always, depends on your capacity for endurance.
David Faris David Faris is professor of political science at Roosevelt University and author of It’s time to fight dirty: How Democrats can build a lasting majority in American politics. His writings appeared in Slate, The week, The Washington Post, The New RepublicAnd Washington Monthly. You can find him on Bluesky at @davidfaris.bluesky.social.
