By Stephen Smoot
In early 1918, the brutal Bolsheviks had seized control of the dying Russian Empire. As they killed the Czar, his wife, his minor children, and even their spaniel Jimmy in a dirty basement, Leon Trotsky was seeking to end the conflict with Imperial Germany.
Trotsky declared that the new Communist state would not pursue war, but would not surrender. He stated “no war, no peace” and left it to world opinion if the German Empire advanced. Not impressed with Trotsky’s subtlety, the Imperial armies moved on until Vladimir Lenin ended the ridiculous farce, ordering Trotsky to sign a surrender to end their war.
Trotsky’s plan did not work because Communist Russia held no leverage, no advantage, in the struggle.
President Donald Trump has likewise crafted a different type of strategy against Iran that seems like “no war, no peace,” but the United States holds every advantage, including that of time.
Americans have a singular interpretation of what war looks like and a very extreme definition of what victory entails. It goes back to Ulysses S. Grant placing Fort Donelson in Kentucky under siege. Confederate General Simon Bolivar Buckner asked Grant for his terms of surrender. General Buckner expected an old-fashioned parley in which the victor would allow some semblance of terms to respect the fighting spirit of the defeated, which was customary.
“Unconditional surrender” was Grant’s reply, which became his nickname as well. General Buckner replied that the Union commander was “no gentleman” and signed the surrender. That said, not even Grant imposed unconditional surrender on Robert E. Lee at Appomattox.
Americans tend to imagine war as pounding the enemy until they beg for mercy and surrender without terms. This is why military actions that do not satisfy those definitions seem less than victory, but there are many ways to skin a cat.
President Trump could have used conventional strategies and tactics to bludgeon Iran into the stone age, organized an army of Iranian expats to join US forces, invade, and topple the regime. This would have killed large numbers of Iranians and exposed American troops to casualties. The US could have attacked like a tiger or a bear, ripping apart the enemy in a storm of blood, then pick up the bill of restoring the nation afterwards, as the US typically does.
Under President Trump, however, the United States has not attacked like a tiger or a bear. It has conducted this war as a boa constrictor by putting the entire Iranian state under siege.
In this tale of two sieges, as 1862 came to a close and 1863 opened another year of war, Grant was conducting a complex series of maneuvers to cut off the Confederates at Vicksburg. That city-turned-citadel represented the last Confederate States stronghold on the Mississippi River. Loss of it would give the Union full control of the river and cut the South in two.
Newspaper reporters and editors typically understand neither diplomacy nor war and write and publish accordingly. Just as many in the media today cannot grasp the different levers of pressure used to grind Iran into submission, they could not comprehend back then what General Grant was working to accomplish. In both cases, a siege required careful and precise moves to completely surround the enemy, cut them off, and wait for their resources to run out and compel submission.
A boa constrictor snake similarly seems to move slowly, lazily, and ineffectively as it gradually coils around its prey, squeezing them until resistance is no longer possible. Then the snake crushes, kills, and consumes its target.
Grant stated in a letter to his father what President Trump is thinking, that “I have no idea of being driven to do a desperate or foolish act by the howlings of the press.” That press, spurred on by jealous rivals of Grant within the Army, accused him of drunkenness, incompetence, and repeated failures. Newspapermen could not grasp why the Union general severed his own supply line to maneuver independently in Mississippi to come up on Vicksburg from the relatively unprotected east side, rather than take on the defenses at the front.
They also did not see the wisdom in Grant’s decision in late spring of 1863, once his siege was set, to “out-camp the enemy,” as he explained in his memoirs.
Similarly, the press does not understand how President Trump has painstakingly used his Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury to diplomatically and economically isolate Iran after blowing apart most of its military capabilities. Eyeing the long term, President Trump has successfully pushed area partners to cut off trade and support for Iran while opening up multiple options for oil exports.
Nikita Khrushchev, in his earthy language style, once compared the NATO outpost in East Berlin in the Cold War to human testicles. “Squeeze it and America will scream,” he noted. Iran treated the neighboring Straits of Hormuz the same, threatening to send the global economy into shock by shutting off the convenient water route for area nations to export oil.
President Trump has worked feverishly through much of the year to render the Straits of Hormuz permanently irrelevant, forever removing Iran’s pressure point on the global economy.
At US urging, Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states, no friends or admirers of Shi’ite Iran, have expanded pipeline construction. The US Navy is also shepherding ships through routes in the Straits made safe by the American destruction of Iran’s ability to effectively attack. Currently, their attacks on shipping are imprecise and cause minor to moderate damage to ships instead of sinking them.
Baird Maritime, which reports on global shipping, stated that shipping traffic on official counts has continued to tick higher through the Straits. Other media sources report that the counted traffic has risen to 20 percent of prewar levels. “Dark” traffic, which includes both US warships and civilian tankers that turn off identifying broadcasts, has likely pushed that percentage much higher.
Meanwhile, inside Iran, the currency has entered hyperinflation as the economy has crashed. The government will soon run out of money to pay its military and police forces. Also, President Trump has isolated Iran almost completely from its allies China and Russia. Iran will run out of resources by fall, which will force whoever runs their government to make a decision or give way to those who will make peace. Meanwhile, President Trump’s diplomats work to elevate the secular civilian side of the government over the fanatical religious parties which have since 1979 held the nation in their grip.
President Trump’s strategy, to “out-camp the enemy,” is quickly degrading Iran’s ability to function, much less fight, without putting American assets in added risk.
Iranians outside of Iran largely support the war, seeing the mullah-led Islamic Republic as an alien occupying system, not a true reflection of their tradition, culture, and will. Islamic fundamentalists overthrew the monarchy when they took control and shredded thousands of years of Iranian and Persian culture and tradition as they established a totalitarian Islamic regime. Since 1979, their mullah-dominated government subjugates women, murders gays, and allows no action outside of what is religiously acceptable under their interpretation of Islam and its founding text, the Koran.
The Trump Administration clearly seeks to preserve the civilian government to prevent chaos and the need for a full reconstruction. Negotiations work to boost the power of those the US would prefer to see in charge postwar. This would resemble Eastern Europe when the Communists lost power. Nations freed from Soviet Communist grip simply outlawed the Communist Party structures of authority and added democratic processes to the civilian governments restored to authority.
Ever since, those governments have operated well.
One must cut newspaper reporters and editors a bit of slack because most truly do not understand how war or diplomacy work in depth. Too many have been trained to seize the emotional angles of any story first, stoking fear and anger rather than inspiring understanding. They talk of “forever war” only a few months into the conflict.
They also do not understand at all how President Trump’s tariffs have brought nations into line with America’s isolation of Iran.
President Trump seeing this through to a conclusion where Iran is subjugated is vital. Without military capabilities, without the Sword of Damocles of an Iranian nuclear bomb hanging over the region, without a permanent threat to cut off oil through the Straits of Hormuz, without Iranian money subsidizing dangerous and divisive terrorism, and without their military support of Russia (US destruction of Iran’s drone manufacturing facility helped to turn the tide in favor of Ukraine in that conflict), Iran has little choice but to conform to the region’s slow move toward permanent peace.
Coming into 2026, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba were building blocks in the foundation for China and their junior partner Russia to take America’s place as the dominant military and economic powers on earth. President Trump has personally dismantled that system without firing a shot at the two main protagonists and allowing no opening for them to hit the United States back.
Is it fun or comfortable to pay $4 a gallon for gas? Absolutely not. This has been the price, however, that today’s Americans have been asked to pay for the decades-long dream of a permanent peace and understanding in the Middle East, which Iran has prevented almost by itself since 1979. It’s a cost worth paying, especially since Iran has been irrevocably ground down to a shadow of its former power and can no longer threaten its neighbors, Israel, or the United States with impunity.
Many have died, including hundreds of Americans, as they pursued their ambitions. Now their bills have come due and their ambitions are making their death rattles. The world is a better place without a threatening Iran and President Trump is making that happen.
When Vicksburg fell on July 4, 1863 (and Confederate commanders begged Grant to make the surrender any other day), the newspapers suddenly held Grant up as a hero. President Abraham Lincoln, whom they had savaged for standing firm beside his favorite fighting commander, now looked in their eyes for a time wise and patient instead of foolish and ignorant.
To get to that victory, both President Lincoln and General Grant had to ignore the noise and keep their eyes on the prize of victory. President Trump must do the same because the benefits of winning are peace and prosperity without the continual threats coming from Islamicized Iran.
President Trump has gotten no media accolades or credit when his policies and actions bear fruit and will get none for this, either.
