America lost, Iran won — and Trump handed China the keys to global dominance: conservative

President Donald Trump may have declared imminent victory in Iran, but a conservative commentator warned on Thursday that Iran is the country that knows “what winning looks like” in that conflict.

“When this war ends in ‘two or three weeks’ the Iranian regime will be more securely in power than it was before the war and it will have demonstrated the power of a strategic weapon,” The Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last wrote on Thursday. “America will have lost. Iran will have won. Let’s examine the scope of our defeat and their victory.”

Last reviewed America’s foreign policy history since 1946, when in the immediate aftermath of winning World War II the nation assumed the role of “the world’s policeman.” Now by invading Iran, breaking the country and then walking away, America is “abdicating” the responsibilities it assumed eighty years ago.

“This is absolute madness,” Last wrote. “If America isn’t going to lead, someone else will—not just in the Strait of Hormuz but around the world. Trump is giving China the green light to exert its influence in the Indo-Pacific. He is opening the door for Chinese cooperation with Europe. He is putting Taiwan—and hence the global supply of semiconductors—at China’s mercy.”

Last added, “He is prompting the rest of the world to organize a new global order according to their interests.”

Analyzing the geopolitical situation that will exist after the Iran war ends, assuming Trump follows through on his pledge to withdraw within two or three weeks, Last concluded that the war had been a failure from America’s point of view.

“Prior to this war, Iran’s ability to project power was limited,” Last explained. “It had proxy forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen. It threatened Israel, waged war against American forces in Iraq, and made the Saudis nervous. Occasionally it could pull off terrorist attacks in places like Europe and South America. But that’s where Iran’s ability to influence events stopped.”

He concluded, “Now, the entire world has to account for Iran. South Korea and Japan have to come to terms with it. The EU will need to make arrangements with it. Trump’s war destroyed Iran’s navy and air force, but expanded Iran’s ability to pursue its interests. We lost. They won. He did that.”

Last’s takedown of the Iran war was issued one day after Trump delivered a national war address intended to convince the public that the war’s aims are valid.

"His address did not come across as a wartime speech but instead was a disjointed series of complaints, brags and exaggerations (along with a few outright lies) delivered by a man who looked and sounded tired,” former Republican Tom Nichols commented regarding Trump’s address. “After his 19 minutes on the air — brisk by Trump’s standards — Americans could be forgiven for being even more concerned now than they were only a few days ago," wrote Nichols.”

On the other side of the aisle Democratic strategist and former Vice President Kamala Harris adviser Mike Nellis denounced Trump’s attempted speech as “boring.”

“Prime Trump understood that the worst thing you can be in politics is boring,” Nellis wrote. “He never would have given a drab speech like that. Old man Trump doesn't have the juice and is lost, trying to find a political exit to this war.”

In response to these criticisms of Trump’s Iran war and performance, the White House has been on the defensive. Last month White House spokesman Kush Desai referred to economists Ed Gresser and Richard Wolff as “idiots” after they respectively told AlterNet Trump adviser Peter Navarro’s defenses for Trump were “not correct” and “depend[-ing] entirely on linking rising oil prices to geopolitical and military risks.”

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