The two-week ceasefire President Donald Trump announced with Iran, supposedly conditioned on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, is no American victory. It confirms every geostrategic warning I issued in my column “440.9 Kilograms of Betrayal” seven days ago.

This agreement was never negotiated directly with Tehran. It was struck between the United States and Pakistan, then forced on Iran by Chinese pressure. Tehran refused public meetings with American officials hours before the announcement and had already severed private channels — specifically with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

Iran’s immediate launch of ballistic missiles toward Israel and the Sunni Arab states — amid deliberate vagueness on when the truce even begins — proves the regime’s contempt. The Ayatollah has zero intention of genuinely reopening the Strait or delivering a serious long-term deal. That is the problem.

Under this emerging endgame, Tehran is now well positioned to impose a ‘de facto’ toll regime on commercial shipping, enforced by the credible threat of proxy attacks. This is not diplomacy. It is a concession disguised as de-escalation — hastily brokered through Pakistani intermediaries to quiet domestic backlash and stop the Republican Party’s slide ahead of the 2026 midterms. In practice, it is a Vietnam-Afghanistan-style exit engineered for short-term political cover at the direct expense of enduring American strategic interests.

By accepting this half-measure, Trump has left the hardcore of the Iranian regime fully in power — and strengthened. Real authority in Tehran now rests with parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf: brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, commander of the Nasr Division in the Iran-Iraq War, former head of the Guard’s Aerospace Force, and later chief of the regime’s repressive national police.

Unlike more cautious figures such as Ali Larijani or the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Ghalibaf fully embodies the Revolutionary Guard’s radical, expeditionary ethos. His elevation after the strikes consolidates hardline control — operationally and ideologically. This so-called “new regime,” as President Trump would have it, is no departure. It is an intensification.

Tehran is now certain to accelerate its nuclear drive, backed by Russian and Chinese technical support and North Korean warhead miniaturization expertise. Pre-war IAEA data confirmed Iran held 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent — enough, once further processed, for at least ten nuclear weapons. Large portions of that stockpile remain unaccounted for, hidden in fortified tunnel complexes at Isfahan, Fordow, and Natanz.

Tehran has refused any verification or surrender.

Emboldened by its new position of strength, that intransigence is now permanent. At best, it may temporarily ship the material to a third country like Russia — an idea already floated before the war (something that Trump curiously rejected and now -after a war- will have to accept) — only to retrieve it quietly once Trump’s term ends. There will be no genuine disarmament, as in Libya or Syria.

In the end, Iran is the only real winner of this ceasefire that Trump so desperately sought. Unmoved by criticism, his thinking has shifted from the sharp, surprise-driven strategy that once defined him to something closer to delusion.

During this military operation, Washington tested and proved the feasibility of air-transportable micro-reactors through Project Pele. Iran, which has eyed this technology for years, will now pursue the same mobility — building toward a survivable nuclear triad that guarantees the regime’s survival. In tandem, the mullahs will market this ceasefire as a divine victory of “Islamic resistance over Western Satanism,” consolidating their messianic narrative of triumph.

Inside Iran, repression will intensify. Multiple polls — including surveys commissioned by the Iranian presidency itself — show 80 to 92 percent of Iranians oppose the regime, while a Ministry of Culture study found 72.9 percent support separating religion from state. That overwhelming domestic rejection now faces renewed crackdowns rather than liberation.

Regionally, the Sunni Arab states will hedge aggressively. They may inch closer to Israel for immediate security, yet they will simultaneously court Ukraine for advanced anti-drone systems, deepen ties with China, and quietly accommodate Russia to keep Tehran at bay.

The Strait of Hormuz — carrying 20 percent of global seaborne oil — remains a choke point under Iranian coercion. Kharg Island, which handles 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports, never faced a sustained blockade. South Pars, the world’s largest gas field supplying 80 percent of Iran’s total gas production, escaped the economic strangulation that could have ignited internal revolt. These three geostrategic pillars went unstruck. So did any serious effort to arm Kurdish and Baloch opposition forces. The result: a half-finished campaign that handed the Revolutionary Guard vital breathing room.

Hezbollah now receives oxygen. Hamas, handed an ultimatum to disarm or face unrestricted Israeli action, now knows Washington lacks seriousness. In other words, this is the biggest miracle that could have happened to the “Resistance Axis” in their permanent journey to survive.

On the other hand, this outcome strengthens the extreme-right narrative led by Vice President JD Vance and vile antisemite Tucker Carlson at the expense of the coherent international security policy championed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump now finds himself caught in a no-win situation.

Had Trump finished the job properly — destroyed the regime and replaced it with a coherent pro-Western order — he might have lost seats in the upcoming midterms but would have had two full years to sell the narrative: “I went to war, delivered freedom, and guaranteed real security in the Middle East.” Instead — much like in Venezuela, and likely Cuba as well — he resorted to a cosmetic fix, papering over systemic failure while peddling narratives no one credible will believe.

Consequently, the Republican Party risks losing both the midterms and the White House to a resurgent Democratic Party bent on prosecuting Trump and obliterating his legacy. Though it may sound like a bad joke today, do not be surprised if JD Vance soon betrays Trump — both privately and publicly — to position himself as the GOP’s next presidential nominee against the looming threat of America’s first openly woke administration: Gavin Newsom as president, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as vice president, Bernie Sanders as secretary of health, and Ilhan Omar gunning for secretary of defense.

For Israel the imperative is existential. The Jewish State must accelerate full military independence from Washington without delay. Ten years from now the real contest will be nuclear. Iran, backed by Russia, China, and particularly North Korea, will consolidate a mobile triad with air-transportable reactors while enjoying restored international legitimacy. Jerusalem cannot tie its survival to electoral calendars in Washington.

Trump’s Pakistan-brokered ceasefire delivers the mullahs their most significant reprieve since 1979 — eroding deterrence, emboldening proxies, and leaving 440.9 kilograms of enriched uranium unaccounted for. Worse, it risks recasting the disastrous Obama nuclear deal as an “avant-garde achievement.”

History will record this not as prudent de-escalation but as the risky concession that mortgaged American power for short-term political relief. The bill will come due in blood, in barrels of oil, and in the next preventable catastrophe.

Trump did not end the war. He guaranteed its far more dangerous sequel.

Undoubtedly, this is and will always be Trump’s most consequential foreign-policy misstep.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)