Iran has won the war. Trump and Netanyahu now face a reckoning

Iran has won the war. Trump and Netanyahu now face a reckoning Submitted by David Hearst on Mon, 05/25/2026 - 19:07 The balance of power has shifted, and nations of the Middle East will no longer accept a regional order dictated by the US and Israel A billboard depicts the Strait of Hormuz with a caption in Persian reading 'Forever in Iran’s Hand', at Tehran’s Vanak Square, on 25 May 2026 (Atta Kenare/AFP) Off Each day brings a fresh turn in the tortured negotiations between US President Donald Trump and the Islamic Republic of Iran .  Each time an agreement on one point is close, Trump picks up the phone to call his partner-in-crime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - and Trump then retreats from it. This is what has happened to two points on which Iranian negotiators thought they had an agreement. According to Hassan Ahmadian , an Iranian affairs analyst, the two key elements of a 30-60 day ceasefire being proposed were that the truce would cover Lebanon , and that some Iranian assets would be unfrozen. But however tortuous the path, and even if this deal fails and Trump decides to attack Iran for a third time, it is brutally clear that the US has just lost another war in the Middle East - its sixth in 25 years. Iran has all the cards , chiefly the Strait of Hormuz, but also the deterrence its drones and missiles have achieved over its Gulf neighbours - and other cards still it has yet to play, like the closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea. Trump has none.  These serial failures by the US in the first quarter of this century, when its military power was undisputed, and it held a monopoly on its use, are quite the achievement...

Original source: Middle East Eye