How Trump went wrong on Iran

I write this assessment in early September when Trump's Iran was more than six months old. It was clear that in launching an intensive air raid on Iran on February 28, 2026, President Donald Trump was persuaded by Benjamin Netayahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, to take that action. Israel joined in the attack, fearful that Tehran was making advances to develop a nuclear bomb. An agreement negotiated by former President Barack Obama that spelled out the extent to which Iran's nuclear programme could and would go. But Trump who disliked Obama did away with some of the programmes that the former president had launched. The Iran deal was one of those that was buried.

The Israeli leadership believed that if Iran had succeeded in developing a nuclear bomb, it posed an existential threat to their country. Iran had not accepted that a Jewish state would be established in the middle of the Muslim world in the Middle East. Trump failed to work out how the war would be brought to an end once the immediate objective of the bombing raids was achieved. Setting back Tehran's nuclear programme was not the only aim Trump appeared to have in mind. He also wanted to change the Iranian regime which, since 1979, had been headed by a group of clerics that despised the United States.

Then Ayatollah Ali Khomeni had returned from self-imposed exile and saw the Emperor Raza Shah Pehlevi fly out of Tehran. He had been kept on the throne by the United States that had earlier removed a prime minister who wanted to end the monarchial system in his country. Washington's intervention saved the Iranian monarch. There was considerable popular support for Khomeni which the established regime could not contain. In spite of the continuing American support the emperor decide to leave Iran and go into exile. His departure led the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran headed by a group of clerics who had no interest in brining democratic rule to the country. Instead they created a system of governance, which, according to them, followed the Islamic sharia.

Soon after the clerics had taken control of the country, their followers raided the American embassy in Tehran and took nearly 450 Americans hostage. They were kept in confinement for as long as President Jimmy Catrte was president. They were released and sent home when Ronald Reagan was elected president. According to an assessment written for The New York Times by two journalists, Juian Barnes and Dustin Volz, under the caption, "Confident Iran may be willing to escalate war", Iran's current rulers are ready to go to some length to defy Donald Trump. One of the stated aims of the US attack on Iran was to bring about a change in the country's regime. Ther fist American-Israeli attack struck inside the compound in which the regime leaders were having a meeting. Most were killed but were replaced by those who were viewed as even more hardliners than those who had perished. According to the experts who watch developments, power has passed on to the military which is more hawkish compared to civilian leaders.

"Iran has grown more confident in its ability to attack targets in the Middle East and appears determined to continue the conflict for months to frustrate the United Staes," wrote Barnes and Volz. "In many respects the assessments reflect what has been happening on the ground as fighting erupted again after a period of relative calm. In the past week (first week of September) Iran targeted ships in the Strait of Hormuz and American troops in the region and U.S. forces struck inside Iran, killing military personnel and civilians." The two journalists quoted several experts and read the reports they had written. The reports, some current and former officials said, suggest that "any agreement to fully end the war will be hard to reach. There are few signs that Iran is ready to make any sort of deal with the United States, content to exacerbate President Trump's political problems ahead of the U.S. midterm elections."

Complicating the picture for the United States is China's reaction to the conflict in Iran. On August 26 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outlined plans to "sever every economic lifeline" to Iran, targeting a constellation of players that continue to provide the financial support. But the administration appeared to tread carefully around China, by far the largest customer of Iran's most valuable export: oil. The US lists of more than 60 brokers, companies and ships that are subject to sanctions include more than a dozen small companies from Hong Kong and mainland China. Conspicuously absent were heavy weights in China's financial system – a sign that Washington was keen not to jeopardise a fragile truce with China.

Beijing, nevertheless, responded forcefully. China will "take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard its own rights and interests," Lin Jian, a spokesman for the foreign ministry said. The confrontational reaction underscored a dilemma for the Trump administration. Beijing in the past has defied American sanctions and continued to buy Iranian oil. At the same time, China supplied Tehran with raw materials and technology that support its economy and its military. Nearly six months into a war with Iran, the United States has shown little appetite for opening another front with an increasingly retaliatory China. The timing is particularly delicate. Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, is visiting Washington in late September to meet with President Trump to continue talks aimed at stabilising the relationship between the two countries.

Althea, a threat intelligence company, said that local media in Iran had published more than 1,200 Persian language articles referring to both President Trump and the midterm elections in the United States. Josh Gotthime, a Democrat of New Jersey, believes "that the Iranians think they have maximum leverage. Because the Iranian government does not care much about the suffering of its people, it has been able to withstand both punishing sanctions and bombardments."