Triumph of the Will

Posted on August 7, 2026 by Muller
From Carafano’s piece in 19fortyfive.

Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film of 1935 comes to my mind when reading President Donald Trump’s suggested reading of a propaganda piece by James Jay Carafano on 19fortyfive: Donald Trump Won the Iran War. Carafano is a Senior Counsellor to the President and associated with The Heritage Foundation, notorious for Project 2025.

Whatever went wrong in Trump’s Iran war, Carafano spins the legend that everything was planned.

“Iran War Turns into Trump Middle East Triumph. We are about to see the biggest reshaping of the Middle East since Moses led the Jews out of Egypt.”

Honestly, that’s how the piece start.

Both Maximalists (“the wanted regime change”) and Minimalists (“Nothing will be achieved; Trump has dragged the U.S. just in another endless war”) were wrong. Trump’s “I did it my way” will change the Middle East forever – but “in a good way.”

What narcissists like Trump usually do when the results of their actions turn out unfavorably—and I have mentioned this here before—is to claim that it was planned that way from the start: reduce cognitive dissonance. In Carafano, he has now found someone who decisively fosters this mental strategy.

Even Trump’s waffling (isn’t that term negatively connoted?) becomes a strategy. Read this about “Procrastinators”:

“They are impatient and confused by what they see as Trump’s waffling, vacillating between negotiating and punishing the regime, overlooking the deep conviction behind his strategy, a sincere humanitarian streak which abhors needless loss of life—ours and theirs. Since he has largely accomplished our war aims, Trump can take a more measured approach to get to the end-state he wants without unnecessary loss of life and needless destruction.” 

“The victor gets to define victory.”

Carafano continues,

A good fight has a “theory of victory,” a logical, feasible, suitable, and acceptable means to justify calling a win in war. That guidepost is the best measure of success.

For Trump, a win is to squash Iran’s capacity to destabilize the region, creating space for regional collective security, reconstruction, and economic resilience, providing a long-term deterrent against a resurgent regime. From the Abraham Accords to the work of the Board of Peace, and major economic initiatives like IMEC and Tripp, the expectation is that the real measure of Iranian defeat is if these initiatives flourish. That’s the theory of victory.

The real test of “is Trump winning” is if there are signs that the long-term peace structure the president is seeking to replace the overshadowing threat of Iran is emerging. Everywhere you look in the region—the answer is yes. (Emphasis added.)

Well, my answer is a decisive “No!” And I am by no means alone. Even the Gulf monarchies have lost, I’m afraid, any confidence in Trump.

What Carafano thinks of Gaza (“[Trump’s Peace] Board also announced a pilot reconstruction project in Gaza to begin in November), Lebanon, Syria – it’s whishful thinking.

“The spin doctors can spin whatever the damn well please, but the historians are going to write that Trump is the most consequential force in reshaping the Middle East in modern memory.”

There will be historians but they will come to different conclusions. As those who consider Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will as both brilliantly orchestrated but deeply dangerous. Just propaganda, really.

7 August 2026 @ 10:00 UTC+2.

Last modified August 7, 2026.

Posted in Iran, USA | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

They Need Ideas

Posted on August 4, 2026 by Muller

CNN has the following.

“The request from a senior officer at the US military command carrying out President Donald Trump’s war with Iran came in an email: We need ideas.

‘We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,’ an officer in US Central Command’s intelligence branch wrote in a message sent Wednesday to a broad group of military analysts, according to a source familiar with the message. A second source also said that a senior US military officer sent the message last week soliciting new ideas for how to deal with Iran.”

Over the past weeks I was, sometimes unconsciously, wondering whether Donald Trump and his administration of experts is hiding something. Is he really so clueless? What is the deeper meaning, a strategy, of signing such a vague Memorandum of Understanding which almost everybody considers a frank surrender? Iran won the war.

The above leak, which military officials said was unusual over email, seems to prove that there are no reasonable options available to Trump to force Iran into a deal on his terms.

Of course, there is always the nuclear option for any American president, God forbid.

The Iranians know that Trump has run out of ideas. They appear to have the upper hand in the endgame. They have a clear aim: Force Americans out of the Gulf region.

Continue reading →
Posted in Iran, USA | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

How a Toxic Narcissist Deals With Cognitive Dissonance

Posted on August 2, 2026 by Muller

I have written about the above before, when American President Donald Trump had signed the worthless Memorandum of Understanding with Iran in Versailles. Contrary to what Trump thought (but maybe sensed), it was—as political commentators worldwide observed—a document of capitulation signed at a site of great historical significance. Stupid.

Worthless it was as the hostilities soon resurfaces with tit-for-tat attacks which became for increasingly impatient Gulf monarchies, previously strong allies of the Unites States, unbearable. The ongoing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz threatens their business model: oil, tourism, shareholder capitalism.

Even their citizens are increasingly threatened by Iranian missiles and drones mainly targeting U.S. military bases but maybe soon also desalination plants.

Trump’s air war, his one-off attempt to deploy ground troops, his own naval blockade after Iran had closed the Strait of Hormuz–all of that had failed.

Now tit-for-tat. What alternative lays on the table? When Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited, despite an arrest warrant of the International Criminal Court, the White House this week, alarm bells rang.

Continue reading →
Posted in Iran, USA | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Abraham Accords Forced on KSA

Posted on July 23, 2026 by Muller
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump, Bahraino Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan on the Blue Room Balcony after signing the Abraham Accords on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, September 15, 2020.

Donald Trump later posted a minute-long video with a false suggestion that he won the Nobel Peace Prize. The video showed the Nobel Peace Prize medal photoshopped in front of a clip of the White House ceremony for the Abraham Accords, in which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates agreed to normalize relations with Israel,” as Matt Stieb of The New Yorker explained. That photoshopped picture has miraculously disappeared from the net, unfortunately.

Later that year, Morocco and Sudan, and most recently Kazakhstan have joined the Abraham Accords of September 2020 which sole purpose was to normalize relations with Israel, a pariah state in much of the the Arab world, and not only after recent genocidal activities in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and South Lebanon.

The Abraham Accords – doomed to failure from the start, just like Trump’s “Board of Peace” and so many of his other undertakings.

In conference calls on May 23 and 25, Trump nevertheless called on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey to participate. According to reports, Trump’s presumptuous manner was met with laughter and condescending silence on the other end of the line.

Continue reading →
Posted in Israel, Saudi Arabia, USA | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Blockade with 20% on All Cargo

Posted on July 14, 2026 by Muller

President Donald Trump had a good idea in all his despair. Although Iran has so far not installed its suggested tollbooth in the Strait of Hormuz but insists of paragraph 5 of the infamous Memorandum of Misunderstanding, see Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf’s tweet,

“The era of one-sided deals is OVER. We told you: keep your word or pay the price. Reality is knocking,”

with a reminder for those in the U.S. who have signed the 3-page document:

See UPDATE below.

So, although Iran just plays fair, Trump will now adopt a new role in the drama, The Guardian of the Hormuz Strait.

He announced yesterday, to everybody’s consternation,

“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran. We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait. The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as “THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World. The process and formation will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP” (Bold emphasis added.)

Continue reading →
Posted in Iran, USA | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment