Trump is trapped by his own strategy as he grapples for an exit in Iran

Hannan Blog 59 May 07, 2026

If words won wars, Donald Trump’s Iran conflict would have ended long ago.

But the president still can’t find a way out of a war meant to last no more than a month and a half that is now grinding into its 10th week.

Trump is ensnared by two traps of his own making — one geopolitical and the other domestic. Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and refusal to fold mean he can’t definitively end the war at an acceptable military price.

And as the conflict drags on, its political impact at home further narrows his options. With an approval rating in the 30s, gas prices averaging over $4.50 a gallon and public opposition to the war rising, he’s got no political space to continue waging it.

So Trump is stuck — a reality that helps explain his incessantly upbeat claims of progress in peace talks and tendency to announce or change military strategies with no warning.

The latest hope is a one-page memo now being negotiated with the two countries and third-party mediator Pakistan, CNN has reported. The document would end the war and start a 30-day clock to resolve sticking points.

This might suit Trump’s taste for simplicity. But a one-pager, even if it is agreed upon, seems insufficient to finally solve a near half-century of US issues with Tehran — including intricate nuclear negotiations and its missile and proxy terror programs.

Then there are Iran’s demands for huge sanctions relief to revive its economy and its desire to profit from the passage of oil and gas tankers through a strait it has turned into a major strategic advantage.

Iran is expected to hand its responses to the US plan to Pakistani mediators on Thursday. Some sources said that current negotiations are the closest the two sides have come to ending the war. It is to be hoped that optimism is justified, since the conflict’s human and economic costs are dire and growing.

But Trump has claimed multiple times in recent weeks that a “deal” was about to come together and that Tehran had agreed to all his demands — only for the reality of an unyielding US foe to reassert itself.