COMMENTARY: Iran, the adversary Trump Still Doesn’t Understand

A Vital Oil Route Under Constant Strain

The Strait of Hormuz remains, even in 2026, the tipping point in this explosive relationship. A significant portion of the world’s oil passes through this narrow strait, and it is precisely there that maritime incidents have multiplied in recent weeks. On Tuesday, Iranian attacks targeted three commercial vessels transiting the strait; a Qatari oil tanker had already caught fire off the coast of Oman on Monday after being struck by an “unidentified projectile,” according to the British maritime monitoring organization UKMTO, while a second vessel, a Saudi oil tanker, was damaged by missile fire attributed to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Every incident in this maritime corridor triggers a predictable chain reaction: rising oil prices, pressure on marine insurance companies, and, above all, a near-automatic military escalation between Washington and Tehran. The price of a barrel of Brent crude thus rose to nearly $76 after the revocation of the U.S. waiver on Iranian oil exports—an increase of about 6% in just a few days.

An Oil Waiver Revoked in the Midst of a Crisis

The U.S. decision to revoke the oil license granted to Iran in late June—an exemption that was set to remain in effect until August 21—illustrates how quickly Washington can withdraw a gesture of goodwill as soon as an incident occurs. This volatility on the U.S. side, in turn, fuels Iranian mistrust: why negotiate in good faith with a partner capable of revoking an economic agreement overnight, based on an incident for which responsibility—as is often the case in this region—remains difficult to establish with absolute certainty?

This is where the cultural dimension mentioned by the i Paper journalist comes into full focus: American diplomacy, accustomed to stable and verifiable contractual frameworks, comes up against an Iranian reality where the regime’s survival, internal rivalries between factions, and the need to project an image of strength to its own people carry at least as much weight as the written terms of an international agreement.

As long as the Strait of Hormuz remains the point where the global economy and Iranian national pride intersect, no ceasefire signed from afar will last more than a few weeks.

Eighty-five targets, a calculated message

Iran’s response to the U.S. strikes was by no means improvised. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed to have targeted approximately 85 U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait, while the Iranian military stated that it had carried out a drone attack on the Sheikh Isa base in Bahrain. The IRGC also announced that it had shot down a U.S. MQ-9 drone in southern Iran. Sirens sounded in Kuwait and Bahrain in the hours following the initial U.S. strikes, a sign that the entire region was holding its breath.

This level of precision in Iranian military communications—specific figures, named targets, and swift claims of responsibility—contrasts with the often caricatured image of an unpredictable and purely reactive regime. In this exchange, Iran has demonstrated an ability to calibrate its response to send a strong signal without necessarily seeking full-scale escalation—a nuance that Trump’s vocabulary, reduced to “scum” and “sick people,” fails to capture.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry Raises the Diplomatic Tone

On the diplomatic front, Tehran has opted for formal accusations rather than relying solely on bellicose rhetoric. The Iranian Foreign Ministry held Washington responsible for the consequences of violating the memorandum of understanding signed in June, while Mohammad Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator, described the reinstatement of oil sanctions as “major MoU violations,” also citing the strikes on southern Iran as additional violations of Articles 1 and 2 of the Islamabad Agreement.

This precise and well-documented legal language stands in stark contrast to the image of a regime driven solely by ideology. It reveals an Iranian diplomatic corps that is thoroughly familiar with the texts it has signed and uses them as a rhetorical weapon against an American partner who, for his part, sometimes seems to improvise his position from one statement to the next.

Reducing Iran to a collection of “sick people” amounts to ignoring a diplomatic approach that cites the articles of an agreement with a precision that Washington, on that day, failed to match.

Rutte Endorses the U.S. Strike

One detail is worth noting: it wasn’t just Washington that defended the legitimacy of the strikes carried out on the night of July 6–7. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte described the strikes as “absolutely necessary,” arguing that the United States had to “react forcefully” to what he considered a violation of the ceasefire by Iran. This public stance by such a key ally places the Atlantic Alliance in a position of implicit support for the U.S. escalation, even as several European NATO members had, according to Trump himself, been reluctant to authorize bombing missions from their bases.

Trump also took advantage of the summit to settle scores with certain allies on this specific point, complaining that the United Kingdom had not allowed him to use a base for two weeks during the initial phase of the conflict. Among the European allies, only the United Kingdom had ultimately authorized limited strikes against Iranian missile sites from its territory—a nuance that illustrates just how fragmented Western solidarity on this issue remains.

An Alliance Divided on How to Respond to Tehran

This fragmentation is not insignificant. It reveals that even within the Western camp, perceptions of the Iranian threat vary considerably from one capital to another. Some European governments fear that too strong a show of support for U.S. operations against Iran could complicate their own regional diplomatic relations, while others, such as the United Kingdom, are choosing to align more directly with Washington.

The result, for now, is an Alliance that officially displays unity at the Ankara summit while, behind the scenes, managing real tensions over how to handle the Iranian issue—an issue that even the most experienced Western allies are struggling to frame coherently.

An Alliance that endorses the strikes while admitting, in the same breath, that its members refused to participate fully in them fairly well illustrates the true state of Western solidarity on this issue.

An obsession justified by the history of the issue

When Trump claims that Iranian leaders would use a nuclear weapon if they obtained one, he strikes at the heart of an issue that has poisoned relations between Iran and the West for more than two decades. Iran’s nuclear program remains one of the few issues on which a relatively broad Western consensus persists: an Iran armed with nuclear weapons would pose a direct threat to regional stability—to Israel in particular—and to the strategic balance of the entire Middle East.

The memorandum of understanding signed in June between Washington and Tehran specifically included the opening of talks on this nuclear issue, proof that even at the height of military tensions, both sides recognized the need to address this matter through diplomatic channels. The collapse of the ceasefire on Wednesday therefore calls into question not only the immediate military truce but also this nuclear negotiation channel that had barely begun.

The Risk of the Nuclear Issue Being Left to Its Own Devices

This may be the most serious danger of this sequence of events: every collapse of the ceasefire further delays the technical discussions on Iran’s nuclear program—discussions that require continuity and a minimum level of trust between negotiators, two ingredients that are rare in a relationship marked by repeated military escalations. The more the cycle of strikes, retaliation, and breakdown repeats itself, the greater the risk that the nuclear issue will be resolved by force rather than diplomacy—an option whose regional consequences would extend far beyond the scope of the U.S.-Iran conflict alone.

This dynamic should be a cause for concern beyond just Trump’s supporters or critics: a Middle East where the Iranian nuclear issue remains hostage to cycles of maritime retaliation is not in the interest of any serious Western power, nor in that of Israel, nor in that of the Gulf monarchies, which are themselves exposed to the economic consequences of each new flare-up.

A nuclear issue that moves forward only between maritime crises is not truly progressing; it is merely surviving from one fragile ceasefire to the next.

A War That Is Depleting Western Arsenals

Beyond presidential rhetoric, this conflict has a considerable material cost that extends beyond the Israeli-Iranian border. Since hostilities began in late February 2026, the use of Patriot interceptors—deployed to counter ballistic missiles and drones—has reached such a level that defense analysts estimate nearly one-third of the global stockpile of these interceptors has been depleted. The Gulf states, which are directly exposed to Iranian fire, are reported to have used more than 1,100 interceptors in just a few months—a rate of consumption that is worrying Western military planners far beyond the region itself.

This drain on global missile defense stocks has direct repercussions elsewhere in the world, particularly in Ukraine, where the need for Patriot systems to counter Russian strikes remains critical. Every interceptor used over the Gulf to intercept an Iranian missile is one that will not be available to bolster Ukraine’s air defense against Russian bombardment—a harsh logistical reality that the rhetoric of confrontation with Iran tends to obscure.

A strategic equation that goes beyond the Iranian issue alone

This is where the analysis must broaden its scope: the crisis with Iran is not an isolated issue; it is part of a global competition for limited military resources, in which every theater—the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Indo-Pacific—is drawing on the same Western production lines. U.S. manufacturers, notably Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, are producing interceptors at a pace that struggles to keep up with the combined demand from all these simultaneous fronts.

This industrial reality should, in theory, prompt Washington to manage its simultaneous military commitments more cautiously. But the rhetoric of a complete break with the past employed by Trump on Wednesday—as emotionally understandable as it may be after months of Iranian provocations—fails to take into account this material constraint that weighs on the entire Western defense posture.

Every Patriot interceptor fired over the Strait of Hormuz is one fewer interceptor for Kyiv, and this harsh reality is never mentioned in the heated statements made at a NATO summit.

What “culturally incomprehensible” Really Means

The phrase used by the i Paper journalist deserves closer examination, as it is more than just an isolated journalistic comment. For decades, analysts specializing in international relations have documented the recurring difficulty the U.S. diplomatic apparatus has had in deciphering the internal workings of the Iranian regime: the coexistence of rival factions within the regime itself, the central role of the Supreme Leader in ultimate strategic decisions, and a political culture in which public humiliation—whether suffered or inflicted—often carries more weight than the strictly rational calculations expected by Western negotiators.

This lack of understanding is not unique to Trump. It has persisted across several successive U.S. administrations—both Democratic and Republican—all of which, to varying degrees, have underestimated the Iranian regime’s ability to withstand considerable economic and military pressure without immediately collapsing. But the crude rhetoric employed by Trump—reducing this complexity to direct insults—illustrates an approach that prioritizes immediate grandstanding over long-term strategic understanding.

The Political Cost of Insult-Based Diplomacy

Publicly labeling a foreign government as “scum” and “sick people” may satisfy an American electorate exasperated by years of Iranian provocations, but it also closes diplomatic doors that might prove necessary later on, particularly regarding the nuclear issue mentioned above. Any negotiation, however modest, requires at least a minimal respectful—or at the very least functional—channel of communication between the parties. The language used on Wednesday does nothing to facilitate the resumption of talks, which Trump himself had left open by raising the possibility that his negotiators might continue discussions.

This contradiction—publicly denouncing the adversary in insulting terms while maintaining an active channel for negotiation—perhaps best sums up the Trump administration’s policy toward Iran: an alternation between spectacular firmness and discreet pragmatism, where public rhetoric serves primarily a domestic audience, while actual diplomacy continues, more quietly, behind the scenes.

One can call an adversary “scum” from the podium and hope, the very next day, that he will return to discuss the nuclear issue at the negotiating table, but one cannot claim that the two messages are intended for the same audience.

Bahrain and Kuwait on the Front Lines

Iran’s retaliatory strikes this week did not merely target abstract American interests: they struck bases located in Bahrain and Kuwait, two Gulf monarchies that have hosted a significant U.S. military presence for decades. With every escalation between Washington and Tehran, these countries find themselves in the position of potential targets, without having any real control over the decisions that trigger these retaliatory strikes. The Kuwaiti military, for example, had to contend with missile and drone attacks described as “hostile” by its own military authorities.

This structural vulnerability partly explains why the Gulf monarchies have, almost constantly for years, advocated for lasting de-escalation rather than full-scale confrontation with Iran—even when they share Western concerns about Iran’s nuclear program or Tehran’s regional activities carried out through its armed allies.

A region paying the price for a relationship it cannot control

The paradox is cruel for these Gulf states: they depend on U.S. military protection to deter direct Iranian aggression, but this very alliance turns them into prime targets as soon as Washington and Tehran enter into open confrontation. This dynamic illustrates the limitations of a U.S. policy that, by focusing on direct confrontation with Iran, sometimes underestimates the cost that its regional partners must bear with each cycle of escalation.

For Gulf capitals, the phrase “culturally incomprehensible”—applied to Iran by an American commentator—sounds almost like a luxury: they have no choice as to whether or not to understand their Iranian neighbor; they must deal with it on a daily basis—economically, energetically, and in terms of security—regardless of Washington’s sentiments regarding the nature of the regime.

It is easy to declare a country incomprehensible from a NATO summit thousands of kilometers away; the Gulf monarchies, however, must live with this incomprehension every day, without the luxury of distance.

Ankara: A Stage Chosen or Imposed

The fact that Trump chose to declare the end of the Iranian ceasefire specifically on the sidelines of a NATO summit—rather than from Washington via a controlled communication channel like Truth Social—is worth noting. This off-the-cuff statement, made before international journalists gathered to cover the Atlantic Alliance, immediately overshadowed part of the summit’s official agenda, notably the discussions on European defense funding and the tensions surrounding Greenland mentioned elsewhere.

This choice—whether intentional or not—illustrates a recurring feature of Trump’s presidential style: the simultaneous handling of multiple foreign policy issues through spontaneous statements, often made in response to journalists’ questions rather than as part of prepared remarks. This approach generates a dense and often contradictory news cycle, in which Iran, NATO, Greenland, and Ukraine are all mentioned in the same series of informal exchanges with the press.

The Risk of Improvised Diplomacy on High-Stakes Issues

On issues as sensitive as relations with Iran, this improvised style of communication carries real risks. A presidential statement declaring that a ceasefire is over—even if subsequently qualified by the remark that negotiators may continue discussions—sends a strong signal to oil markets, regional allies, and Tehran itself, which must then interpret the exact scope of these remarks without an official diplomatic text clarifying the U.S. position.

This ambiguity—whether intentional or unintentional, a harsh statement followed by a subtle nuance—could be a deliberate strategy of maximum pressure followed by a carefully crafted way out. But it could just as easily reflect a lack of a clear and coordinated line between the White House and its own negotiators on the Iran issue, a hypothesis that only the developments of the coming days will be able to resolve with certainty.

Announcing the end of a ceasefire between two questions from journalists at a NATO summit may not be a strategy; it may simply be the absence of a strategy disguised as firmness.

Why Caution Must Not Turn into Complacency

It would be a mistake to interpret this commentary as a defense of the Iranian regime or as downplaying the threat it poses to regional stability and Western interests. Iran remains an actor that supports armed groups hostile to Israel, pursues a nuclear program with ambiguous intentions, and whose maritime provocations in the Strait of Hormuz directly threaten the global energy supply. Given these factual observations, Western vigilance remains fully justified, and this week’s U.S. strikes are part of a strategy of deterrence against very real Iranian attacks on commercial vessels.

The issue, therefore, is not to question the need for a firm stance toward Tehran, but to examine the effectiveness of a diplomatic approach that alternates between personal insults and fragile ceasefires without ever establishing a stable framework for lasting de-escalation. A firm policy can coexist with a more nuanced understanding of Iran’s internal dynamics; these are two complementary, not contradictory, requirements.

What the West Should Take Away from This Episode

For Washington’s Western allies, this episode confirms the need to diversify channels of dialogue with Tehran beyond the highly volatile U.S.-Iran bilateral relationship alone—a relationship that is subject to the vagaries of U.S. presidential communication. Mediators such as Pakistan—which was already involved in the April negotiations—or broader multilateral frameworks could offer a stability that the direct power dynamic between Washington and Tehran structurally struggles to produce.

This line of reasoning in no way calls into question Western solidarity in the face of the Iranian provocations documented this week. It simply calls for recognizing that firmness alone, without a more nuanced understanding of the adversary, produces recurring cycles of crisis rather than a lasting resolution to the Iranian issue.

Being firm with Iran and understanding Iran are not two contradictory positions; they are the two halves of a foreign policy that, for the time being, has only managed to develop one at a time.

From 1979 to 2026: A History of Mutual Distrust

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the ensuing hostage crisis, U.S.-Iranian relations have been burdened by a historical legacy of mutual distrust that extends far beyond successive administrations. Every U.S. president, from Carter to Trump, has had to contend with an Iranian regime that has made resistance to American influence a cornerstone of its domestic political legitimacy. This historical continuity explains why no administration, regardless of its political orientation, has succeeded in establishing a stable and predictable relationship with Tehran.

The current cycle—the February war, the April ceasefire, repeated breakdowns leading up to the July collapse—is therefore part of a long-term trajectory rather than an anomaly specific to the Trump presidency. This does not exonerate the current administration from its specific rhetorical choices, but it does call for placing this episode within a historical context broader than just the sequence of events over the past few weeks.

Lessons Not Learned from Previous Cycles

Analysts of the Iranian issue regularly point out that phases of maximum pressure—whether economic, through sanctions, or military, through targeted strikes—have historically produced mixed results: they weaken the Iranian economy without, however, causing the regime to collapse or bringing about a fundamental change in its regional policy. This observation, documented over several decades, should temper Western expectations regarding the effectiveness of a new military or economic escalation against Tehran.

It is precisely this historical lesson that the phrase “culturally incomprehensible” seems to imply: understanding Iran does not mean trusting it or easing the pressure, but rather adjusting Western expectations to the reality of a regime that has demonstrated, cycle after cycle, its ability to survive considerable pressure without yielding on the core of its strategic positions.

Repeating the same strategy of maximum pressure for decades while hoping for a different outcome this time around has less to do with diplomacy than with stubbornness disguised as firmness.

A precedent that has not gone unnoticed in Moscow and Beijing

The way Washington manages its relationship with Iran is never viewed in isolation. Russia and China—two powers that maintain substantial economic and military ties with Tehran—are closely monitoring the U.S.’s ability to maintain a consistent stance against an adversary that, while not a major power, is capable of causing significant regional disruption. A ceasefire that collapses after just a few months—punctuated by off-the-cuff presidential statements rather than a clearly articulated and consistently upheld strategy—sends a signal of volatility that these rival powers may factor into their own strategic calculations.

This does not mean that U.S. firmness toward Iran is in itself a strategic mistake. But the form this firm stance takes—public insults, ultimatums on social media, and impromptu statements on the sidelines of international summits—projects an image of unpredictability that can be interpreted by more patient and methodical adversaries as an exploitable vulnerability in other theaters, particularly in Eastern Europe vis-à-vis Russia.

Consistency: An Underestimated Strategic Asset

In a world where the West is simultaneously confronting Russia in Ukraine, an increasingly assertive China in the Indo-Pacific, and an Iran that remains a constant source of regional instability, the consistency of the U.S. stance constitutes a strategic asset as valuable as the stockpiles of Patriot interceptors mentioned above. Every contradictory signal sent in one theater potentially undermines the credibility of the U.S. commitment in the others.

This is perhaps the most important conclusion of this episode: beyond the question of whether the ceasefire with Iran will hold in the coming weeks, the way Washington communicates on this issue has repercussions that extend far beyond the Middle East alone and affect the overall credibility of Western deterrence in the face of all of the West’s strategic adversaries.

A superpower that improvises its Iran policy on the fly in response to press questions unwittingly sends a message of weakness that Moscow and Beijing are perfectly capable of reading between the lines.

Oil as an Immediate Barometer of the Crisis

The financial markets did not wait for diplomatic nuances to react. The rise in the price of Brent crude to around $76 per barrel in just a few days illustrates how seriously economic actors are taking the possibility of a prolonged escalation between Washington and Tehran. This rapid reaction from the oil markets serves as a real-time indicator of the perceived credibility of presidential statements—far faster than any traditional diplomatic analysis.

For Western consumers, this increase—if it persists—will translate into higher prices at the pump, a concrete reminder that tensions in the Strait of Hormuz are never confined solely to the abstract realm of geopolitics. This is perhaps one of the few aspects of this issue that directly affects the daily lives of Western citizens, far beyond the circles of international relations experts.

Divided American Public Opinion

In the United States, polls conducted during previous cycles of tension with Iran show public opinion divided between support for a firm stance and weariness with repeated military interventions in the Middle East. This structural ambivalence limits the room for maneuver of any U.S. administration, which must both project an image of strength toward Tehran and avoid the impression of an endless military commitment in a region where historical precedents—from Iraq to Afghanistan—weigh heavily on the collective memory.

This tension between a public display of firmness and public weariness partly explains the communication style chosen by Trump: dramatic statements that satisfy the demand for immediate firmness, followed by more subtle nuances—such as allowing his negotiators to continue discussions—that provide a way out of the crisis without giving the impression of a new, prolonged military commitment.

The price of oil never lies about the perceived severity of a crisis, even when presidential statements shift in tone from one hour to the next.

An issue that requires more than a presidential punchline

The collapse of the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, announced on the spot by Trump in Ankara, confirms a reality that has been well-documented for decades: U.S.-Iranian relations cannot be resolved with a series of dramatic statements, however cathartic they may be for a domestic audience exasperated by Tehran’s repeated provocations. The facts are clear: U.S. strikes on more than 80 targets, Iranian retaliatory strikes on 85 sites, a Qatari tanker ablaze, an oil waiver revoked, rising Brent prices—and they paint a picture of a cycle of escalation that will not find a lasting resolution as long as firmness is not accompanied by a more nuanced understanding of Iran’s internal dynamics.

The i Paper journalist’s characterization of Iran as a country “culturally incomprehensible” to Trump sums up with almost clinical precision the gulf separating U.S. presidential rhetoric from the complex reality of a regime that Washington has been confronting, in one form or another, for nearly half a century.

What the West Must Watch for in the Coming Weeks

The key question now is not merely whether Trump will stand by his declaration of a break with Iran or allow his negotiators to resume dialogue, as he himself has suggested. It concerns the ability of the entire Western security apparatus—diplomatic, military, and industrial, through the stockpiles of interceptors shared across multiple theaters—to absorb a new cycle of tensions with Iran without compromising commitments made elsewhere, particularly toward Ukraine in the face of Russia.

A firm stance toward Iran remains justified by the facts documented this week. But it would benefit from being based on a strategy less dependent on impromptu statements made at an international summit, and more on a patient understanding of an adversary who, forty-seven years after the 1979 revolution, continues to confound both those who underestimate him and those who overestimate him.

The day Washington treats Iran as a problem to be understood rather than an adversary to be insulted, this issue may finally cease to repeat itself in exactly the same way every two months.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist