{"id":244487,"date":"2026-08-11T08:15:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T08:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/244487\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T08:15:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T08:15:24","slug":"experts-deliver-brutal-obituaries-for-trumps-failed-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/244487\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts deliver brutal obituaries for Trump\u2019s failed Iran war"},"content":{"rendered":"

University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer on Sunday delivered a harsh reality check to US President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0over the state of his illegal war with Iran.<\/p>\n

In an\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0with Australian journalist Tom Switzer, Mearsheimer was asked why Trump seemed willing to accept an arrangement in which Iran is able to demand fees from transport ships in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which has been almost entirely shut down since the US and Israel began bombing Iran in late February.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very simple,\u201d Mearsheimer replied. \u201cHe has no choiceHe lost the war. This is a devastating defeat for the\u00a0United States<\/a>. Can you tell me what the United States should do to regain leverage over Iran? I actually think you can\u2019t tell me because we have no solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mearsheimer then explained why Trump\u2019s threats to escalate his assault on Iran ring completely hollow.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne, he\u2019s out of munitions,\u201d the political scientist said. \u201cNumber two, our Gulf allies have told him, in no uncertain terms, that is unacceptable because the Iranians have made it clear that if we escalate, they will escalate, and they will destroy\u00a0oil<\/a>\u00a0facilities, desalination plants and so forth.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the same discussion, Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, similarly argued that Iran appears to be in the driver\u2019s seat. \u201cThe period where you can basically pressure Iran into submission,\u201d he said, \u201cI think is gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nasr added that Iran now appears to be \u201cvery comfortable demanding\u201d concessions from the US in exchange for reopening the strait, and he said that many in the\u00a0Washington<\/a>\u00a0foreign policy establishment had yet to understand this fact.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn reality, Iran is not overplaying its hand,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just playing its hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scholars\u2019 arguments were echoed by Daniel DePetris, fellow at Defense Priorities, who\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0in an analysis published Monday that the US has little choice but to accept Iran charging fees to ships in exchange for passage through the strait.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging such a situation is far from ideal, DePetris said that it became inevitable when Trump launched his unprovoked war without authorization from the\u00a0US Congress<\/a>\u00a0more than five months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s war handed Iran the perfect excuse to leverage its geography, and the Iranians didn\u2019t hesitate to do so,\u201d wrote DePetris. \u201cOver time, the Strait of Hormuz, in addition to Iran\u2019s more aggressive posture toward its neighbors writ-large, has become something far more valuable: a strategic card Iran can play whenever Trump threatens to accelerate military operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

-Common Dreams<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer on Sunday delivered a harsh reality check to US President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[7603,68107,38,34,246,23804,101],"class_list":["post-244487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-block-2","tag-common-dreans","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-iran-war-2026","tag-john-mearsheimer","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117075884250857017","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}