As Donald Trump launched a war of aggression against Iran nearly five months ago, he insisted Washington would achieve a decisive victory within weeks. Trump and his advisers scoffed at any suggestion that they were breaking repeated campaign promises not to start new conflicts, and to end America’s legacy of forever wars, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In early March, a week into the war, Trump declared he would only agree to “unconditional surrender” by Iran’s theocratic government. He vowed to destroy much of Tehran’s military, called for a popular uprising and touted the overthrow of the regime that rose to power after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. Of course, Trump’s grandiose promises turned out to be the latest chapter in a long history of American imperial hubris.

Not to mention that Trump contradicted multiple pledges he had made to a weary US public that he wouldn’t start new wars during his second presidency. In November 2024, in his election night victory speech from Florida, Trump confidently told Americans: “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

Now, the ceasefire he negotiated with Tehran has collapsed and Trump risks dragging the US into yet another forever war – in Iran.

In mid-June, the US and Iran reached a memorandum of understanding that included reopening the strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquid gas supplies transited before Iran shut it during the war. That agreement was effectively a 60-day extension of a ceasefire that was reached in early April, but did not lead to reopening the crucial waterway because Trump imposed a naval blockade against Iranian ships in the region. Trump said the memo “achieves everything we set out to accomplish”, even though it........

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