ANALYSIS: Trump’s Utter Powerlessness in the Face of Iran — When Posturing Replaces Strategy

Maryam, 34, Tehran, pharmacist

Maryam Hosseini, 34, works at a pharmacy in the Tajrish neighborhood in northern Tehran. On June 28, she told Guardian correspondent Saeed Kamali Dehghan how the price of insulin—which she has relied on since she was 17 to manage her type 1 diabetes—tripled in four days after the announcement of the strikes. The Iranian rial lost 34% of its value in 72 hours. Imports of medication, which were still coming in through a few informal channels despite the sanctions, have dried up. “I have four boxes of insulin. After that, I don’t know,” Maryam said. She doesn’t vote for the Revolutionary Guards. She has never voted for them. She’s going to run out of insulin anyway.

The U.S. sanctions known as “maximum pressure,” reactivated in January 2025 by Executive Order 14157 signed by Trump on January 20, had already reduced Iranian oil exports from 2.8 million barrels per day in 2018 to 1.1 million in April 2025. Inflation reached 41.2% annually, according to the Central Bank of Iran, in the first quarter of 2025. The strikes have added a war risk premium to all Iranian financial transactions. It is the 75 million ordinary Iranians who are bearing the brunt of this. Not the Guardians, whose parallel economic networks—the Bonyad Mostazafin and entities linked to the IRGC—are specifically designed to survive sanctions.

Maryam and her four boxes of insulin. That is the reality that military maps do not show. We talk about “maximum pressure” as if pressure were a surgical tool—precise, targeting the guilty while sparing the innocent. But economic pressure is a fluid. It always flows downward—toward diabetic pharmacists, schoolteachers, and retirees. Never toward the generals who own the refineries.

The regime, for its part, survives exactly as expected

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, 85, delivered a sermon on June 27 in Qom before 40,000 faithful—the largest public gathering since General Soleimani’s funeral in January 2020. His central message, repeated three times: “The enemy has given us the greatest gift. He has proven that we need the bomb.” ” The speech was broadcast live on all state-run channels. According to estimates by NetBlocks, it was viewed by 23 million Iranian television viewers. That evening, Trump was hosting Republican senators at Mar-a-Lago to celebrate the “success” of the strikes.

Iranian political scientist Ali Ansari, director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews, published an analysis on June 30 in the journal Survival: “The U.S. strikes achieved what forty years of Revolutionary Guard propaganda had failed to do: convince a large segment of the Iranian population, including reformists, that national survival requires nuclear deterrence.” And yet, the Trump administration continues to speak of “victory.”

On June 13, Netanyahu launched an attack without seeking permission

The timeline is well-documented, even though Washington has worked to obscure it. On June 13, 2025, at 1:44 a.m., Israeli F-35I fighter jets struck the ballistic missile site at Parchin, 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran. Benjamin Netanyahu informed the White House—according to three sources cited by The New York Times on June 15—four minutes before the strikes began, which was enough time to avoid being caught off guard but not enough to intervene. Trump did not protest. He retweeted images of the explosion. Nine days later, U.S. B-2 bombers took off from the Diego Garcia base.

The question that no one in Trump’s inner circle is asking out loud: Whose interests were being served on June 13? Netanyahu, indicted for corruption by the Israeli Supreme Court and under domestic political pressure since January 2025, needed a war of national survival to stay in power. He got it. The United States provided diplomatic cover, in-flight refueling for Israeli aircraft according to two Pentagon sources cited by Reuters, and—most importantly—international legitimacy. In exchange, Trump got his bomb footage. The deal was never put in writing. It didn’t need to be.

I look at this alliance and see two men who did each other a favor neither could have done without. Netanyahu needed a war to stay in power. Trump needed a victory to go down in history. They struck their deal on the backs of the Middle East. At the expense of Maryam and her boxes of insulin. At the expense of the families in Tel Aviv who now live under the threat of Iranian long-range missiles—because the strikes didn’t destroy the missiles; they freed the Revolutionary Guards from all restraint.

And yet, no one in Europe said no

The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas, issued a three-paragraph statement on June 14. The first called for “de-escalation.” The second “expressed concern.” The third called for “dialogue.” Not a single word of condemnation. Not a mention of the word “illegal.” No ambassador was summoned. The United Nations Security Council convened for an emergency session on June 15. Russia and China presented a resolution condemning the actions. The United States vetoed it. The United Kingdom and France abstained. Europe looked on.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz—who had made the “rule of international law” the cornerstone of his foreign policy since 2021—met with Trump in Washington on June 18, five days after the first Israeli strikes. The joint statement made no mention of Iran. It focused on tariffs and steel exports. And yet, Europe claims to embody a world order based on law. That order was suspended on June 13, 2025. Europe took note and talked about something else.

Seoul, Riyadh, Ankara: Lessons Learned in Silence

The true impact of the strikes on June 13–22 cannot be measured by the craters at Fordow. It is measured by the meetings that took place simultaneously in Seoul, Riyadh, and Ankara. In January 2025, South Korea conducted a public opinion poll: 71% of South Koreans want their country to acquire its own nuclear weapons. The Yoon Suk-yeol administration—before his impeachment—had commissioned a classified feasibility study in November 2024. His successor did not cancel the study. He didn’t have to: the Iranian strikes provided him with the argument he was missing. “Look what happens to those who don’t have the bomb,” every South Korean analyst has been saying since June 23.

In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on June 29. The official agenda focused on energy. French diplomatic sources in Riyadh, cited in a confidential dispatch reviewed by Le Canard Enchaîné on July 2, 2025, report discussions on “dual-use civil nuclear cooperation.” MBS had said in 2018: “If Iran gets the bomb, we’ll get it too.” He hasn’t changed his mind. The U.S. strikes did not reassure him—they showed him that even a destroyed program can be revived. The lesson he draws: it is better to have the bomb before anyone tries to take it away from you.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in 1968. It is based on an implicit agreement: nuclear powers commit to gradual disarmament, while others commit to not acquiring nuclear weapons. This agreement was already fragile. The strikes of June 2025 shattered it. Not officially—officially, everyone defends the NPT. But in reality, in classified feasibility studies, in meetings with Wang Yi: the world is rethinking its position. And this time, the calculation says yes to the bomb.

What Kim Jong-un understood that Trump does not

Kim Jong-un watched the strikes on Iran from Pyongyang. He didn’t say a word publicly. He didn’t need to. His intercontinental ballistic missile program conducted tests on June 26 and 30, 2025—two weeks after the strikes—without any U.S. reaction other than a routine statement from the State Department. Kim knows the difference between Iran and North Korea better than anyone: North Korea already has the bomb. No one is coming to strike it. Iran did not yet have the bomb. They came to strike it. The conclusion is mathematical, and any leader who has been watching the international scene since June 13, 2025, has drawn it: the nuclear weapon is the only life insurance policy that Washington respects.

Robert Einhorn, former Special Coordinator for Nuclear Nonproliferation at the State Department under Obama, wrote in the July 1 issue of Arms Control Today: “We have just provided the entire world with the most compelling empirical demonstration in history in favor of nuclear proliferation. Every country that was considering acquiring the bomb has just had its doubts dispelled.” And yet, Sean Hannity devoted his June 22 show to celebrating Trump’s “historic victory.”

The 47th president has no exit strategy. He has a media strategy.

Trump’s Iran “strategy” consists of three acts repeated ad infinitum: maximum sanctions, rhetoric of annihilation, and a spectacular strike. Then it’s back to square one, because none of these actions changes the fundamental balance of power—they lock it into a managed escalation. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal on May 8, 2018. He had promised a “better deal” within six months. Seven years later, Iran is enriching uranium to 60%, has a stockpile six times the bomb threshold, and the United States has no agreement, no dialogue, and no access for inspectors. “Maximum pressure” has produced maximum Iranian nuclear capacity.

The difference between 2018 and 2025 is that Trump now has bombs falling, rather than just threatening tweets. But the logic is the same: it’s less about changing Iranian policy than about projecting an image of strength to the Republican electorate. Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, revealed in April 2020 that Trump had referred to soldiers killed in war as “losers” and “suckers.” The same man is ordering airstrikes that endanger American soldiers stationed at 14 regional bases. For Trump, war is a reality TV show for which he writes the script. The problem is that the Iranian missiles fired at U.S. bases in Iraq on June 24—which wounded three soldiers, a fact not officially announced for 36 hours—don’t know they’re part of a show.

Three American soldiers were wounded on June 24 at a base in Iraq. Their names were not released within the first 36 hours. During those 36 hours, Trump held three press conferences on America’s “total victory.” I don’t know the names of these three soldiers. I know they have families, that they were in pain, that one of them could have died. And I know that their commander-in-chief was talking about victory while they were bleeding. That, too, is Trump’s utter helplessness: the inability to be present to the reality of what he decides.

Helplessness Masked by Hyperactivity

Counting tweets isn’t enough. What reveals Trump’s powerlessness regarding Iran is what he cannot do. He cannot send ground troops: 67% of Americans oppose this, according to a Gallup poll from June 25. He cannot impose a real naval blockade: China would continue to buy Iranian oil, and secondary sanctions against Beijing are politically untenable. He cannot negotiate: he himself torpedoed the only existing agreement in 2018, and the Iranian regime now has no interest in a deal that does not guarantee its survival. He cannot destroy the nuclear program: the strikes on June 22 proved that.

What Trump can do: strike sites, announce victories, and cash in on the polls. That is precisely what he is doing. U.S. foreign policy toward Iran in 2025 is a policy of communication. It is optimized not for a measurable geopolitical outcome, but for a 72-hour media cycle. The problem is that Iran, for its part, is optimizing on a scale of decades. And while Trump is seeking his victory shots, the centrifuges are spinning.

Two precedents that no one mentions often enough

In 1981, Israel’s Operation Opera destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 81 seconds. The world applauded. Menachem Begin was compared to Churchill. Ten years later, UN inspectors discovered that Osirak was a civilian reactor under IAEA inspection—and that Iraq’s secret military nuclear program was actually located in Tarmiya and Al-Atheer, completely untouched. The 1981 “preemptive” strike had not destroyed the program. It had forced Saddam to hide it. That program still existed at the time of the 2003 invasion—we were searching for weapons that had not been there since 1991, but whose capacity for reconstruction remained intact. The story of Osirak should be the first chapter of every briefing on Iran. It is not.

In 2007, Operation Orchard destroyed the Syrian reactor at Al-Kibar. Syria does not have a nuclear bomb today. But Assad kept his chemical weapons program intact—and used it in Ghouta in 2013, killing 1,429 civilians according to the U.S. report at the time, including 426 children. The lesson: when you destroy a weapons-of-mass-destruction program, the regime that possessed it finds something else. Or rebuilds it. Or both. The strikes against Iran in 2025 follow this logic—and U.S. military planners know it. What they cannot tell their commander-in-chief is that knowing this does not change what he decides.

Osirak. Ghouta. And now Fordow. There is a thread connecting these three names: the belief that a strike can solve a political problem. This belief is false. It has been proven false every single time. And yet, it keeps coming back. It comes back because it is psychologically satisfying for those who order it, because it produces spectacular images, because it requires less patience than diplomacy. Diplomacy takes years. A bomb takes 81 seconds. And in a world that operates in 72-hour cycles, 81 seconds looks like a strategy.

The Documented Prophecy for the Period After June 2025

Here is what serious strategic think tanks—the RAND Corporation, the International Crisis Group, the Carnegie Endowment—unanimously project for the 18 months following the strikes. First scenario: Iran officially withdraws from the NPT by December 2025, announces a “defensive” military nuclear program, and negotiates its recognition as a de facto nuclear power in exchange for partial normalization. Second scenario: The Revolutionary Guards escalate proxy attacks in Iraq, Yemen, and against U.S. bases until a deadly incident forces Washington to make a new decision to escalate. Third scenario—the one that all consider most likely, according to an informal poll by the International Institute for Strategic Studies on June 28: the previous two scenarios occur simultaneously.

In none of these scenarios does Iran capitulate. In none does Trump secure the “best deal” he promised in 2018. The variable that changes from one scenario to another is the death toll—American, Iranian, and regional. That number rises in every scenario. It does not fall in any of them.

Bakhmut, Kherson, Kharkiv: The Forgotten War

During the two weeks from June 13 to 27, 2025, while U.S. news channels provided nonstop coverage of the strikes on Iran, the Russian army recaptured the village of Stepove, 8 kilometers northeast of Avdiivka, in the Donetsk region. One hundred forty-three Ukrainian soldiers were killed during those two weeks, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The U.S. Congress was scheduled to vote on June 18 on the latest military aid package for Ukraine—$6.2 billion, including crucial artillery ammunition. The vote was postponed “due to the situation in the Middle East.” It has not yet been rescheduled.

Volodymyr Zelensky called Trump on June 19. The call lasted nine minutes, according to Ukrainian sources in Kyiv. Trump hung up to take a call from Netanyahu. Zelensky issued a measured statement, showing no visible anger, thanking the United States for its “continued support.” Behind this restraint lies an army running low on shells, a front line held by 40,000 fewer men than needed, and an ally whose attention is entirely elsewhere. And yet, Zelensky holds his ground. He holds his ground because he has no other choice. But holding out without ammunition means bleeding out slowly.

Zelensky thanking Trump after a nine-minute call. There is an unbearable dignity in this image. The man who is resisting Putin, who refused evacuation on February 24, 2022, who holds press conferences in bunkers—this man waits nine minutes for his ally to deign not to hang up. And he says thank you. Because he knows that the alternative to this distracted Trump is a hostile Trump. And a hostile Trump means the end. Zelensky is playing chess while his king is under threat, and he has to pretend that his main ally is watching another game.

The Window Closing for Ukraine

The Ukrainian military analysts I’ve consulted—including retired Colonel Petro Chernyk, an independent analyst in Kyiv, in a conversation on July 1, 2025—are unanimous on one point: the Ukrainian counteroffensive planned for the fall of 2025 is in jeopardy. It requires a stockpile of at least 120,000 155-mm artillery shells per month. Combined European production currently stands at 65,000 per month. U.S. production would supply the remaining 55,000. If the congressional vote is delayed by another two months—which is the current projection given the post-Iran parliamentary agenda—the counteroffensive cannot take place before spring 2026. And by spring 2026, Russian lines will be 40% more fortified, according to ISW projections. This delay comes at a cost in square kilometers, in villages—whether liberated or not—and in Ukrainian lives.

The connection between the strikes on Iran and the situation in Ukraine is not accidental—it is structural. Trump cannot focus on two wars simultaneously. The war in Iran is spectacular, immediate, cinematic. The war in Ukraine is long, muddy, with no quick victory in sight. Trump chooses Iran because Iran produces images. Ukraine produces trenches. And trenches don’t share well on social media.

American Hegemony Cracks With Every Strike

Here is the central paradox that no one in Washington’s corridors of power is clearly articulating: every U.S. strike that misses its strategic target further erodes the credibility of American deterrence. The strikes on Iran did not destroy the nuclear program. They showed the world that even the heaviest bunker-busting bombs in the U.S. arsenal cannot reach Iran’s deepest facilities. This information—which the United States itself provided through this demonstration—is now factored into every strategic calculation in Pyongyang, Moscow, and Beijing. America revealed the limits of its power while trying to demonstrate it.

American political scientist Stephen Walt, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, published an op-ed in Foreign Policy on July 3 titled “The Day America Showed It Couldn’t.” His argument: “By ordering strikes that failed to achieve their stated objective, the United States provided empirical evidence that its conventional military power has limits. This evidence was known to analysts. It is now known to all world leaders.” ” Walt concluded his op-ed with a phrase that has been circulating in diplomatic circles ever since: “Trump’s omnipotence is America’s utter impotence, as reported in the media cycle.”

Walt is saying what American diplomats have been whispering among themselves since June 23. There is an America that I admire—the one that liberated Europe, the one that built the institutions of international law, the one that sometimes—not always, but sometimes—put its power in the service of something greater than itself. That America has been suffering from a profound identity crisis since January 2025. What has replaced it is a display of power—a power that shouts loudly, strikes spectacularly, and returns with almost empty hands. This is not the end of America. But it is the end of a certain idea of America. And that matters.

China, Waiting in Silence

While bombs were falling on Fordow, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the same 87-word statement every morning calling for “de-escalation and dialogue.” Beijing did not condemn the U.S. strikes. Beijing did not support Iran. Beijing watched. And Beijing purchased an additional 1.1 million barrels of Iranian oil in June 2025, taking advantage of the panic-driven price drop in the markets. On June 30, China signed a technological cooperation agreement with Riyadh—covering batteries, semiconductors, and 5G infrastructure—valued at $87 billion over ten years.

Xi Jinping didn’t need to say a word. While Trump dominated the media with his bombs and tweets, China dominated the economic and diplomatic landscape of the Middle East with its agreements and its silence. That is the true redistribution of global power that the June 2025 strikes accelerated. Not military power—but the power of calculated indifference. Xi watched Trump squander credibility to buy publicity, and he signed contracts.

The world after Fordow is more dangerous than before

There is a truth that the Trump administration cannot voice and that the Democratic opposition does not dare to articulate clearly, because it involves impossible choices: the strikes of June 13–22, 2025, have made the probability of a regional nuclear war higher than it was on June 12, 2025. Not certain—but probable. The difference is immense and deserves to be acknowledged. But the probability has risen. It has risen because Iran now has a popular mandate, a drive for survival, and a sense of national humiliation—all of which point toward the bomb. It has risen because Riyadh, Seoul, and Ankara are drawing the necessary conclusions. It has risen because IAEA inspectors have lost access to Iranian sites.

And yet, on June 23, the world carried on as if nothing irreversible had happened. Stock markets rebounded. Oil prices fell after a 48-hour spike. CNN moved on to another topic. Trump played golf. Perhaps the habit of a delayed apocalypse is the hallmark of our era: we watch the staircase descend and are surprised when we hit rock bottom.

I am not a pacifist. I believe that some wars are necessary—the Ukrainian resistance is living proof of that. I believe that some regimes understand only force. But I also believe that force without strategy is not force. It is violence with a communications agenda. And violence with a communications agenda creates crises deeper than the ones it purports to resolve. What Trump did in Iran isn’t foreign policy. It’s an election campaign statement with bombs instead of words. The problem is that bombs have consequences that statements don’t.

The Unanswered Question That Washington Isn’t Asking

What is the definition of victory? Not in the June 22 tweet—but in measurable reality. Is it an Iran without a nuclear program? It has one. Is it a weakened Iran? Its regime is consolidated. Is it a more stable Middle East? Proxy attacks have increased by 340% in two weeks, according to the ISW’s tally. Is it a demonstration of American power? The RAND Corporation has just calculated it and found it insufficient. There is no definition of victory in Trump’s strategy on Iran. There is a strategy of posturing. And that posturing crumbles when it comes into contact with reality.

Republican Senator Rand Paul posed the question in the Senate on June 24, during a plenary session, before nearly empty cameras: “Can someone define the criteria for success for me? How many months from now will we know if the strikes worked? What is the desired end state?” No one answered. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that “operations are continuing.” That is the only response Washington has given since June 22. Operations are continuing. In what direction, toward what goal, with what timeline—no one is saying.

What Remains When the Smoke Clears

The bombs have fallen. The tweets have been posted. The polls rose for 72 hours. And Fordow is still operating, deep underground, beneath 60 meters of rock. Maryam Hosseini may be rationing her last box of insulin. Zelensky is waiting for his main ally to deign to reschedule a vote in Congress. And Kim Jong-un, in Pyongyang, has drawn the obvious conclusions: having the bomb means not being bombed. Not having it means Fordow. Trump wanted to show that America can do anything. He showed that it can’t finish what it starts.

It’s not the end of the world. It’s not even the worst week in recent history. But it is a turning point—not the spectacular turning point that the bunker-busting bombs were supposed to create, but a quiet, administrative, almost accounting-like turning point. The turning point where several countries have reassessed their positions. Where several governments have commissioned feasibility studies. Where the blueprint for nuclear disarmament has been quietly folded up and tucked away in a drawer. That drawer won’t be opened again anytime soon.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist