Quoting oneself usually smacks of self-aggrandizement. But I’ll make an exception to hold myself accountable. I wrote on March 31 that “it would be a debacle to pretend that ending the war much as it stands would be anything other than a failure.” President Donald Trump’s ceasefire is murky, so one can’t be certain, but the conflict seems to be ending where it stood back then and looks like a failure.There are big plusses. The Iranian military and nuclear capabilities have been pummeled, although neither has been “completely destroyed,” as Vice President JD Vance claimed during his White House press briefing on Thursday.
Against that, however, are the facts that the Islamist regime is still in place — are the “pragmatists” really winning the argument, as Vance said? — its benighted people remain repressed; its neighbors remain justifiably anxious about the regional menace it poses; our greatest ally, Israel, continues to be under threat from Tehran’s Islamist terrorist proxies; and the world’s superpower has been bested at the negotiating table, accepting promises from habitual liars and granting them in return billions of dollars and maybe enhanced leverage over one of the most important waterways in the world. Even if none of the billions will come from our taxpayers, it’s still money to finance terrorism and prop up our death-to-America enemy.
