COLUMN: “Total Victory” — How Trump Threatened to Wipe Out a Civilization to Secure Two Weeks of Peace

The Strait of Hormuz was not closed—it was operating at reduced capacity

The distinction is crucial, and almost no one makes it. Iran had not closed the Strait of Hormuz. It had slowed maritime traffic through increased naval exercises and stricter inspections of ships passing through its territorial waters. The difference between “closing” and “slowing down” is the difference between a roadblock and a toll booth. Trump portrayed the return to normal as a capitulation. It’s like threatening to burn down your neighbor’s house because he put a speed bump on your street, then declaring victory when he removes it.

Data from the International Energy Agency shows that oil transit through the Strait of Hormuz had fallen by 12 to 15 percent in the preceding weeks—significant, but far from a shutdown. Ahmad, the Emirati oil tanker captain who has been sailing through the strait for twenty years, told Reuters of increased delays, a greater presence of Iranian patrol boats, and palpable tension—not a blockade. The ceasefire agreement has restored transit to its normal level. What is being presented as a strategic victory is in reality a return to the status quo ante, achieved at the cost of a threat of civilizational annihilation.

Trump’s “total and complete victory” is a perfect narrative fiction: create the crisis, escalate the crisis, resolve the crisis, declare victory. The arsonist who proclaims himself a firefighter. And the crowd applauds because the flames have been extinguished—without ever asking who struck the match.

What Tehran Got in Exchange for Its “Surrender”

Two weeks without bombing. Put another way: the United States officially acknowledged that it was considering bombing Iran, and Iran secured a written promise that it would not do so for fourteen days. This is an Iranian diplomatic victory disguised as humiliation. Before Tuesday, the threat of U.S. strikes was merely rhetorical. Since Tuesday, it has been documented in a bilateral agreement—which means Tehran can brandish it at every international forum as proof of U.S. aggression.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, the former Iranian foreign minister who remains influential in Tehran’s diplomatic circles, warned in 2019: “Every U.S. threat strengthens the hawks in Tehran.” Six years later, the threat to eradicate a civilization offers the Revolutionary Guards the greatest recruitment tool imaginable. In the southern neighborhoods of Tehran, in Mashhad, and in Qom, Trump’s message will be translated, printed, and distributed. The strongest argument for Iran’s nuclear arsenal was not made by an ayatollah—it was made by the President of the United States.

Netanyahu’s Red Line in the U.S.-Brokered Ceasefire

Israel immediately backed Trump’s decision—while making it clear, with a speed that smacks of anxiety, that the truce did not include Lebanon. The clarification is surgical. Benjamin Netanyahu wants to have his cake and eat it too: a ceasefire with Iran that stabilizes the Persian Gulf, but a free hand to continue his operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Tuesday’s agreement offers him exactly that.

The calculation is crystal clear. If the United States puts its confrontation with Iran on hold for two weeks, Iran’s ability to support Hezbollah through arms transfers via Syria will be temporarily reduced—Tehran will not risk violating a ceasefire with Washington by arming its proxies during the truce. Netanyahu knows this. His generals know this. The two-week window is a military window of opportunity in Lebanon disguised as a diplomatic pause in the Gulf.

There is something chilling about the speed with which Israel made it clear that Lebanon was off the table. Not “we hope peace will spread.” Not “we want a regional framework.” No—Lebanon is off the table. As if war were made up of watertight compartments. As if bombs adhered to contractual terms.

Lebanon, the agreement’s deliberate blind spot

Beirut received the news in silence. Not the silence of indifference—the silence of those who understand they have just been sacrificed in a deal that has nothing to do with them. Lebanon, with a population of 5.5 million, already mired in the worst economic crisis in its history since 2019—the Lebanese pound has lost 98% of its value—finds itself explicitly excluded from a regional peace agreement. Nadia, 41, a schoolteacher in Tyre, in southern Lebanon, lives 25 kilometers from the Israeli border. She learned of Lebanon’s exclusion on Al Jazeera while she was grading papers. Her comment to a colleague, as reported by an AFP correspondent: “They signed the peace deal over our heads. We’re just the doormat under their feet.”

And yet—Lebanon is geographically, militarily, and politically inseparable from the Iranian-American conflict. Hezbollah is funded by Iran. Its missiles are aimed at Israel. Its bases are in Lebanon. Excluding Lebanon from an Iranian-American ceasefire is tantamount to removing Lebanon from its own history. It is telling 5.5 million people that their territory is a battlefield in which they have no stake. Diplomacy has a name for this: structural contempt.

100%—a figure that leaves no room for reality

“100%. There’s no doubt about it.” The statement, made into an AFP microphone, contains its own refutation. Nothing in international relations is 100%. Nothing in a two-week ceasefire is “total.” Nothing in an agreement secured under the threat of annihilation is “complete.” But Trump isn’t speaking to analysts—he’s speaking to his base. And for his base, 100% is the only number that exists. Not 73%. Not “significant.” Not “encouraging.” Total. Complete. 100%.

The problem with 100% is that it leaves no room for error should the agreement fail. If it’s a total victory and, in two weeks, Iran resumes its maneuvers in the strait—then it’s a total defeat. The 100% rhetoric is a trap Trump is setting for himself. Every proclaimed absolute victory makes the subsequent failure absolutely devastating. Kim Jong-un knows this—after the Singapore summit in June 2018, which Trump declared “historic,” North Korea continued its nuclear program uninterrupted. The “total victory” in Singapore produced no denuclearization agreement. Zero.

100% is the hard drug of Trumpian politics. There is no way to kick the habit. Each dose must be stronger than the last. And when reality refuses to cooperate—when 100% meets 0% on the ground—the withdrawal turns to rage. It is in this rage that threats against civilizations are born.

The Art of the Deal Applied to War

In The Art of the Deal, published in 1987, Trump explains his method: demand the impossible, threaten the worst, accept the reasonable, declare victory. Thirty-eight years later, the method is identical—except that what’s at stake is no longer Manhattan real estate but human lives in the Middle East. Demand Iran’s total surrender. Threaten the eradication of its civilization. Accept a two-week ceasefire. Declare total victory. The pattern is so predictable that it becomes transparent. And yet, it works—not because it deceives, but because it satisfies.

It satisfies an electoral base that wants to see American power projected without consequences. It satisfies financial markets that want predictability, even if it’s artificial—the Dow Jones gained 1.2% on Tuesday evening after the ceasefire was announced. It satisfies a media ecosystem that needs the crisis-resolution-new crisis cycle to fill its airtime. Everyone is satisfied. Except for Reza at the bazaar in Tehran, who still doesn’t know whether to buy inventory. Except for Nadia in Tyre, who now knows that Lebanon doesn’t exist in the agreements that determine its fate.

The Countdown to Anxiety

May 6, 2025. That’s the ceasefire’s expiration date—fourteen days from Tuesday. In fourteen days, either the agreement will be extended—which will require further concessions from one side or the other—or the Strait of Hormuz will once again become the most dangerous flashpoint on the planet. Fourteen days is how long it takes an aircraft carrier to cross the Indian Ocean. It’s how long it takes the Revolutionary Guards to redeploy their coastal missile batteries. It’s how long it takes an oil market to put one crisis behind it and adjust to the next.

Fatima, 28, an oil analyst at Rystad Energy in Oslo, spent Tuesday modeling post-ceasefire scenarios. Her calculation, shared in an internal memo that was made public via Bloomberg: “If the ceasefire is not renewed, the price of Brent will exceed $130 per barrel within 72 hours of its expiration. If strikes follow, $200 is not an extreme scenario—it’s the median scenario.” At $200 a barrel, a liter of gasoline in Europe exceeds 3 euros. At 3 euros a liter, governments fall.

Fourteen days. The length of a COVID quarantine. The length of a layoff notice in Belgium. The time it takes to read two books or lose a job. That’s all that separates today’s world from the world “after.” And “after” is a word no one in Washington wants to spell out.

Iran’s nuclear program, conspicuously absent from the agreement

The ceasefire makes no mention of Iran’s nuclear program. Not a word. Iran has been enriching uranium to 60% since 2021, according to IAEA reports. The threshold for weapons-grade uranium is 90%. The technical gap between 60% and 90% is small—just a few weeks’ work, according to estimates by the Institute for Science and International Security, led by David Albright. Two weeks of a ceasefire means two weeks during which the centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow continue to spin.

Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) in May 2018, calling the agreement “the worst deal in history.” Seven years later, Iran is closer to a nuclear bomb than it has ever been, the Strait of Hormuz has become a regular tool for blackmail, and today’s “total victory” consists of a 14-day ceasefire that makes no mention of nuclear issues. If this is the result of seven years of “maximum pressure,” then the pressure has produced the maximum—but not the one we expected.

Singapore 2018 — The Summit That Achieved Nothing

On June 12, 2018, Trump shook hands with Kim Jong-un in Singapore. “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea,” he tweeted the next day. Seven years later, North Korea possesses an arsenal estimated by the Federation of American Scientists to include between 40 and 50 nuclear warheads. Tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles have continued. The “historic deal” in Singapore resulted in no dismantlement, no inspections, and no verification. It resulted in a photo and a tweet.

The parallel with the Iranian ceasefire is structural, not anecdotal. Same method—escalation, summit, declaration of victory. Same lack of a follow-up mechanism. Same gap between proclamation and reality. Kim Jong-un realized in 2018 that Trump’s “total victory” was a fiction necessary for the U.S. president and harmless to Pyongyang. Iranian leaders realized the same thing on Tuesday. This fiction comes at a cost: it makes every future negotiation less credible and every future threat less dissuasive.

And yet, we continue to applaud these proclamations as if words created reality. As if saying “total victory” were enough to turn a reprieve into peace. Words do not create peace. Verifiable agreements create peace. Words create news cycles.

Doha 2020 — The Taliban Who Didn’t Wait

In February 2020, Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban in Doha. “This is a great day for peace,” he declared. The agreement called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in exchange for Taliban guarantees regarding terrorism. Eighteen months later, the Taliban took Kabul in fourteen days—the same number of days as the Iranian ceasefire. Fourteen days for the Afghan regime to collapse. The images from Kabul Airport in August 2021—bodies falling from planes, babies being passed over barbed wire—are the final act of a “great day for peace.”

Zahra, 23, a medical student in Kabul in 2020, now lives in Hamburg, Germany. She fled four days before the fall. Her father, a surgeon, wasn’t so lucky—he stayed behind. The Taliban forbade him from operating on women. Trump’s “great day for peace” cost Zahra her country, her family, and her education. She started over from scratch at age 21, in a language she didn’t speak. When she saw “total victory” on her news feed on Tuesday, she turned off her phone.

A ceasefire, not a treaty

Words have legal significance. A treaty binds both parties under international law, requires ratification by a two-thirds majority in the U.S. Senate, and creates binding obligations. A ceasefire is a temporary halt to hostilities, revocable at any time, with no permanent legal force. What Trump secured on Tuesday is not an agreement—it’s a pause. The difference is the same as that between buying a house and renting it for two weeks.

Iran has made no permanent commitments. No concessions on uranium enrichment. No concessions on its support for Hezbollah—Israel had to specify separately that Lebanon was excluded. No concessions on its ballistic missile program. No access for IAEA inspectors to suspect sites. Iran has promised to reopen a strait that it had not fully closed—for two weeks—in exchange for a promise not to be bombed for two weeks. The cost-benefit ratio is so lopsided in Tehran’s favor that it takes a spectacular dose of denial to see this as an American victory.

The “total victory” is a disposable ceasefire. Like a lighter. It works as long as it works, then you throw it away and buy another one. Except that lighters don’t cost human lives. And no one threatens to wipe out a civilization just to get one.

What Iran Has Actually Gained

First: implicit recognition of its capacity to cause harm. Threatening to wipe out a country is admitting that that country is powerful enough to warrant such a threat. Iran emerges from Tuesday with its status as a regional power confirmed by the President of the United States himself. Second: immense international “victim capital.” The word “civilization” will be cited in every Iranian speech at the United Nations for the next ten years. Third: time. Two more weeks for its centrifuges. Two more weeks for its arms transfers. Two more weeks to consolidate its positions.

Ali Vaez, director of the Iran program at the International Crisis Group, had warned in a March 2025 report: “Every cycle of threats followed by negotiations reinforces the conviction in Tehran that the nuclear bomb is the only guarantee of survival.” Tuesday confirmed that conviction with unprecedented brutality. An American president has threatened to eradicate their civilization. The next time—and there will be a next time—Tehran will ask itself: with or without the bomb, what difference does it make? The answer, for any rational strategist, is obvious.

Zero votes, zero hearings, zero authorizations

The war clause of the U.S. Constitution—Article I, Section 8—grants Congress the power to declare war. Not the president. To Congress. On Tuesday, a president threatened to destroy the infrastructure of a sovereign nation of 88 million people, then negotiated a ceasefire, without a single vote taking place on Capitol Hill. Not a single one. House Speaker Mike Johnson did not call an emergency session. Senate Majority Leader John Thune did not request a public briefing.

Tim Kaine, a Democratic senator from Virginia and an expert on war powers, had introduced a resolution in 2019 invoking the War Powers Act to limit military action against Iran. The resolution was passed by the Senate 55-45—with eight Republican votes—before being ignored by the White House. Six years later, the situation is worse: the president no longer even bothers to bypass Congress. He ignores it. Congress isn’t being bypassed—it’s transparent.

535 elected officials. 100 senators. 435 representatives. That is the number of people constitutionally responsible for war and peace who were not consulted on Tuesday. 535 people who are paid to represent the American people and who watched as a single man threatened war and signed a truce without being asked for their opinion. This is not a crisis of the presidency. It is the death of Congress.

The War Powers Act—a law that no one enforces

The War Powers Act of 1973, passed after the Vietnam War, requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying armed forces and to obtain authorization within 60 days. No notification was made on Tuesday regarding the redeployment of U.S. forces to the Gulf. The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group has been operating in the Gulf of Oman since March. B-2 bombers are deployed to Diego Garcia. Nuclear submarines are patrolling from undisclosed locations. All of this without a vote. Without debate. Without the slightest trace of democracy.

The reason is simple and devastating: Congress is afraid. Afraid to vote for war and bear the responsibility for it. Afraid to vote against it and be accused of weakness. So it doesn’t vote. It tweets. Ansari tweets. Sanders tweets. Murphy tweets. But no one introduces a resolution. No one calls a hearing. No one demands a vote. The tweet has become a substitute for legislative action—it gives the illusion of resistance without any of its costs.

Isfahan, Tuesday morning, before the agreement

Parisa, a 34-year-old engineer from Isfahan who had bought candles on Monday, spent Tuesday morning calling her mother. Her mother lives near the Shazand power plant in Markazi Province. 1.4 million residents depend on this plant for electricity, running water, and heat. Parisa’s mother is 67 years old. She takes heart medication that must be kept refrigerated. If the power plant is bombed, the refrigerator will shut off. If the refrigerator shuts off, the medication will spoil. If the medication spoils—the rest is simple math.

That’s the sound a civilization makes when it’s under threat. It’s not a scream. It’s a phone call between a daughter and her mother. It’s a voice asking, “How many days’ worth of medication do you have left?” And another voice answering, “Seven.” Seven days’ worth of medication. Half a ceasefire. The time between a 67-year-old mother having a heart attack is shorter than the time between Trump’s next threat.

I wish every person who read “total and complete victory” without batting an eye could hear this phone conversation. Not to make them feel guilty. But to understand that a president’s words travel 10,000 kilometers at the speed of light and land in the kitchen of a 67-year-old woman counting her pills.

The bazaar in Tehran, Tuesday evening, after the agreement

Reza, the 52-year-old shopkeeper, closed up shop at 7 p.m.—earlier than usual. Customers hadn’t shown up. Not because of the ceasefire—but because of the uncertainty. When a country doesn’t know if it will be bombed in two weeks, people don’t buy spices. They buy rice, oil, canned goods—survival staples. The four-century-old Tehran Bazaar, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, had smelled of saffron and cardamom for generations. On Tuesday evening, it smelled of fear. Fear has no smell, scientists say. Reza disagrees.

Four centuries of trade. Fire-brick vaults built during the Safavid dynasty. Corridors where Farsi, Azeri, Arabic, and Kurdish intermingle. Trump threatened to wipe out this civilization. And then he declared victory. And Reza closed his shop. And the saffron remained in his jars. And somewhere, in an office in Washington, someone drafted a press release containing the words “total and complete victory.”

The Day Rhetorical Genocide Became Commonplace

An American president threatened to eradicate a civilization. The market rose. News channels covered the deal. Analysts debated the strategy. And no one—no one—treated the word “civilization” for what it is: the public invocation, by the leader of the world’s leading power, of the destruction of a people, its history, and its memory. We have incorporated rhetorical genocide into our political lexicon. It has become a negotiating tool. A lever. A transitive verb.

And yet—words pave the way for actions. Raphael Lemkin, the jurist who coined the term “genocide” in 1944, had studied the rhetoric that precedes massacres. It always begins with dehumanization. Not the dehumanization of individuals—but of their collective existence. We don’t say “kill people.” We say “eradicate a civilization.” The word erases faces. It transforms 88 million individuals into a historical abstraction. And an abstraction is easier to destroy than a 67-year-old mother counting her pills.

We spent Tuesday debating oil geopolitics while a man normalized the vocabulary of genocide. If, in ten years, a historian searches for the precise moment when words ceased to matter, he will find this date: April 22, 2025. The day when “eradicating a civilization” became a bargaining chip.

The clock is ticking until May 6

May 6. In fourteen days, the ceasefire expires. Either it’s renewed—which means that “total victory” requires an extension, making it no longer total—or it isn’t, and we’re back to Tuesday morning. Back to the power plants. Back to the bridges. Back to the civilization that’s under threat of eradication. The cycle will either come full circle or it won’t. And in the meantime, Parisa will count out her mother’s pills. Reza will either open his shop or not. Nadia in Tyre will grade her papers, wondering if the ceasefire—which doesn’t concern her—protects her all the same, just a little, by extension.

Two weeks. Total victory. 100%. No doubt about it. Parisa’s mother has seven days’ worth of medication. The ceasefire lasts fourteen. The math doesn’t add up. It will never add up. Because total victories exist only in the words of those who don’t count the pills.

Signed, Maxime Marquette, columnist