It is always easier to join the familiar anti-American, anti-Israeli chorus than to understand what is actually happening in the Middle East. When events become complex, slogans rush in to replace strategy.
The current accusation is simple: Donald Trump promised help to Iranians defying the regime, then abandoned them. As always, Israel is dragged into the indictment, with Benjamin Netanyahu cast as a co-conspirator in some calculated betrayal. The comparison to Barack Obama’s retreat in 2009 is now fashionable, as if history were a set of reusable talking points.
But this reading is shallow and premature.
The field is still wide open. Israel remains on alert because this is not a symbolic confrontation. Trump has expressed his revulsion for the Islamic Republic too clearly to exit the stage as a weak man. Even those around him who favor negotiations know that history has a way of destroying every agreement built on illusions about Tehran.
Iran is not Venezuela. It is a country of more than 90 million people, locked inside a dense military and ideological apparatus that hunts dissidents, crushes women and persecutes minorities. What kind of “deal” asks the world to tolerate mass executions in exchange for temporary calm? That is not diplomacy; it is bargaining with a Minotaur while the population is imprisoned in its own homes.
Silence on the streets does not mean surrender. One spark is enough to reignite revolt once the dead are counted and the supreme leader delivers his ritual sermon. But sparks alone do not win. Weapons matter. Structures matter. Time matters. The aircraft carrier has not yet arrived, and Israel must be prepared for a ferocious counterattack if Iran chooses escalation.
Tehran may still dream of a messianic war, with Israel as its preferred victim. That is why regional alignment is crucial: Qatar must not sabotage, Saudi Arabia must not drift, and the Western camp must not fracture.
Nothing here is simple—not even forcing Hamas to disarm or return the body of Ran Gvili as negotiations move forward. This is the Middle East, not a morality play.
One thing, however, is unmistakable. The Iranian people are not the enemy. They are the victims. And history will not forgive a world that confuses fatigue with wisdom while leaving them trapped under their own Nazis.
