Ideas

Iran Has Humiliated Trump

Officials in Tehran got the United States to sign a document that even Americans described as degrading, mortifying, a total capitulation.

First published in The Atlantic on June 18, 2026.

by Graeme Wood, The Atlantic
June 25, 2026 | reading time: 5 Min.

The Iran deal has been described as a “humiliation” for the United States, since the upshot is that America gets little that it didn’t already have before the war, and Iran gets security guarantees and a big pile of money. Donald Trump’s agreement leaves Iran a theocratic state free to arm itself with ballistic missiles and drones and to murder its own citizens. Its terms suggest that this much-despised state will, after a 60-day period of free passage through the Strait of Hormuz, have the ability to regulate maritime traffic.

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