Don gets another big, fat F grade. Failure! An utter disaster. Mr. Trump eschewed thoughtful planning at every step. He accepted the rose-colored assessment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who predicted that the Iranian regime would quickly fall. Mr. Trump dismissed the views of his aides who told him that Mr. Netanyahu’s forecast was farcical. The details of the deal are unclear, but the announced framework suggests that Mr. Trump has won few of the terms he insisted that he would. It is a humiliating comedown for him and the nation he leads. Since the war began, he has said the United States would achieve “total and complete victory” and that Iran must agree to “unconditional surrender.” He suggested that regime change would occur. He said that Iran would be permitted “no enrichment” of uranium and that “the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried” near-bomb-grade nuclear material that it already holds. Hah! None of which appears to be true. The United States, for its part, looks weaker in the eyes of the world. The American military has shown itself unable to quash a much smaller opponent even as it burned through many of its long-range precision missiles and interceptors. The outcome damages this country’s ability to deter other potential adversaries. To begin to repair the damage, the United States would be wise to mend alliances in Europe, the Middle East and Asia that have been frayed by the war’s military and economic effects. The Pentagon will also need to modernize and prepare for the wars of the future. Neither is likely to happen under President Trump. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/15/opinion/-trump-lost-war-iran.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
