What means ‘winning’?

Alastair Crooke, 26 June 2025

At one level, Iran plainly ‘won’. Trump had wanted to be regaled with a reality-TV style, splendid ‘Victory’. Sunday’s attack on the three nuclear sites indeed was loudly proclaimed by Trump and Hegseth as such -- having ‘obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme, they claimed. ‘Destroyed it completely’, they insist.

Only … it didn’t: The strike caused superficial surface damage, perhaps. And seemingly was co-ordinated in advance with Iran via intermediaries to be a ‘once and done’ affair. This is a habitual Trump pattern (advance co-ordination). It was the mode in Syria, Yemen and even with Trump’s assassination of Qasem Soleimani --all intended to give Trump a quick media ‘victory’.

The so-called ‘ceasefire’ that rapidly followed the US strikes -- albeit not without some hiccoughs -- was a hastily assembled ‘cessation of hostilities’ (and no ceasefire -- as no terms were agreed). It was a ‘stop-gap’. What this means is that the negotiating impasse between Iran and Witkoff remains unresolved.

The Supreme Leader has forcefully laid down Iran’s position: ‘No surrender’; Enrichment proceeds; and the US should quit the region and keep its nose out of Iranian affairs.