The War on Iran and the Trap of the “Madman” Strategy

On August 8, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump declared from his golf club that North Korea would be met with “fire and fury like the world has never seen”[1], in response to North Korea’s nuclear tests during that period. Relations between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un subsequently underwent a marked transformation, culminating in a series of bilateral summits. Trump regarded this as a success, which he attributed to his early use of threats as a negotiating tactic[2], even though North Korea did not reverse its policies. Some observers have cited this episode as an example of Trump’s use of the “Madman Theory” during his first administration[3].

Since then, debate over the “Madman” strategy in international relations has resurfaced whenever U.S. President Donald Trump issues a statement or social media post threatening actors that oppose his policies and plans for the international order. The Middle East has borne the brunt of these threats, particularly Hamas during negotiations following the ceasefire in Gaza[4], and Iran since negotiations over its nuclear program began in 2025 and throughout the ongoing war that erupted on February 28, 2026.

Thus far, this strategy has clearly failed to produce the outcomes sought by the United States. Nevertheless, the U.S. president continues to rely on it, issuing increasingly forceful threats to resume the war and eliminate what remains of Iran’s power. This study seeks to answer the following question: Why has the “Madman” strategy thus far failed to achieve Trump’s objectives in the war on Iran? Can this failure be attributed to structural flaws inherent in the strategy itself—flaws that scholars have long warned policymakers and decision-makers against? Or are there additional factors arising from the distinctive nature of the Trump presidency that extend the causes of failure beyond the strategy itself?

To answer these questions, the study first establishes the theoretical foundations of the “Madman” strategy and examines its inherent limitations, which have prompted scholars to caution against its use. It then applies the conditions and requirements of the strategy to the case of the U.S. president and his conduct during the war on Iran.

The “Madman” Strategy

Perhaps the most prominent scholar associated with this strategy is the Nobel Prize-winning economist and strategist Thomas Schelling. Schelling developed the underlying logic of the strategy around the premise that an actor may gain an advantage by convincing adversaries in the international arena that its decision-making is irrational and that it may therefore resort to suicidal courses of action, including actions that could lead to its own destruction[5]. By cultivating such a perception, the actor may achieve its objectives and extract concessions by exploiting other parties’ fear that its threats are genuine.

Schelling elaborated on this strategic logic in an attempt to explain the “rationality of irrationality,” arguing that the deliberate appearance of irrationality can serve specific objectives and generate strategic gains[6]. President Richard Nixon is perhaps the most famous political leader to have adopted this approach. In the late 1960s, Nixon sought to use it to end the Vietnam War by persuading North Vietnamese leaders to accept a peace agreement on U.S. terms that would ensure the survival of a “non-communist” South Vietnam. In 1968, Nixon explained the strategy to one of his senior aides, referring to it as the “Madman Theory”[7].

In October 1969, the Nixon administration launched Operation Giant Lance, which involved a series of military maneuvers, including the deployment of B-52 strategic bombers from bases in the northern United States and Alaska toward the Soviet Union. The operation was intended to signal President Nixon’s apparent willingness to use nuclear weapons as part of his effort to end the Vietnam War. The operation failed to persuade the Soviets to respond as Nixon intended, primarily because the U.S. moves lacked credibility: they were conducted covertly, without public awareness or visible support from American public opinion[8].

Most subsequent studies building on or examining Schelling’s ideas have not supported the use of this strategy. They have argued that it can undermine deterrence within the international system and generate instability that poses a challenge to international peace and security[9]. While numerous studies have criticized the strategy, they have also examined its various dimensions in an effort to define what constitutes a “madman” leader.

Such a leader may be defined as an unpredictable actor whose behavior does not conform to the conventional standards of rationality in international relations[10]. It is important, however, to emphasize that the theory does not concern a leader who is actually insane. Rather, it focuses on a leader who deliberately projects an image of irrationality in order to achieve specific and calculated objectives within a broader strategic framework.

This was the case with Nixon, who was fully conscious of—and deliberately planned—his deceptive behavior toward the Soviets. When his conduct departed from conventional patterns, the team surrounding him, particularly Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, was capable of leveraging that behavior in pursuit of rational strategic objectives. More importantly, Nixon operated within the framework of a coherent grand strategy centered on containing the Soviet Union and the perceived communist threat and preventing its further expansion in accordance with the Domino Theory. In other words, “madness” was a means to a clearly defined strategic end firmly embedded in U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War.

Studies examining the “Madman” strategy have identified credibility as the principal obstacle responsible for its failure in many cases. Credibility, in this context, refers to an actor’s ability to convince an adversary that it is genuinely “mad”—or, in the terminology of international relations, irrational—and therefore capable of making escalatory decisions that could inflict serious harm on both itself and others[11].

The case of President Nixon discussed above illustrates this problem: he failed to convince the Soviets that he genuinely intended to use nuclear weapons to end the war on his terms. Another major obstacle is the issue of domestic support in democratic political systems, which can significantly undermine the effectiveness of the strategy. Presidents who employ such an approach may face domestic criticism from opposition forces and public opinion, including accusations that they are endangering national security for irrational or unjustifiable reasons.

This concern prompted Nixon to conduct Operation Giant Lance covertly, away from public scrutiny in the United States. Yet the very secrecy intended to shield the operation from domestic opposition ultimately weakened the credibility of the threat, leading the Soviets to conclude that the U.S. signaling lacked seriousness and resolve.

Reassessing the “Madman” Theory

Roseanne W. McManus’s 2019 study reassessing the theory is arguably the most significant contribution to this debate. McManus sought to distinguish between rational leaders who portray themselves as pursuing irrational foreign policies because they hold extreme beliefs—Hitler being a prominent example—and leaders who adopt extreme policies because they fail to manage the decision-making process efficiently according to cost-benefit calculations, as in the case of Trump. She further distinguished between leaders who generally pursue extreme policies across a broad range of issues and those who adopt such policies only on specific issues[12].

According to McManus, leaders who hold extreme beliefs on particular issues are the most likely to derive benefits from employing the “Madman” strategy. Because they issue threats selectively and with greater intensity in specific circumstances, their threats acquire greater credibility in the eyes of other actors. Their adversaries may consequently offer limited concessions in order to avoid confrontation and appease them, while hoping to secure benefits from the same leader on other issues[13]. Hitler represents a prominent example of this pattern, given the gains he was able to extract from European powers that tolerated his expansionism before the Second World War in the hope that appeasement would satisfy his ambitions.

Trump and the “Madman” Theory

The question, then, is: Where does Trump fall within McManus’s typology of leaders?

The evidence suggests that Trump has shifted between two categories of leaders. During his first administration, he largely belonged to the category of leaders who pursued extreme policies on specific issues as a result of an inefficient decision-making process that did not consistently follow rational cost-benefit calculations. His approach to many foreign-policy issues was characterized by considerable restraint, while his freedom of action was constrained by a number of senior advisers who represented the institutional and bureaucratic establishment of the United States, including former Secretary of Defense James Mattis. These constraints led Trump, on several occasions, to announce decisions only to postpone or reverse them later. One example was his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, first announced in December 2018[14].

It can be argued that, during his second administration, Trump shifted into the category of leaders who pursue extreme policies across virtually the entire spectrum of foreign policy as a result of a decision-making process that does not efficiently incorporate cost-benefit calculations. Trump became largely free from institutional constraints in selecting his senior officials, leading him to appoint cabinet members and advisers characterized by strong personal loyalty and little willingness to challenge him. This was accompanied by the substantial marginalization of the U.S. bureaucracy and the restructuring of numerous institutions. As a result, Trump gained far greater freedom to conduct foreign policy according to his own preferences, creating an exceptional case that has tested the limits of the “Madman” strategy.

The distinctiveness of the Trump case derives from several factors.

The first is that Trump undermines the strategy’s fundamental assumption: that the leader employing it remains rational and fully aware of the conduct of foreign policy but deliberately projects the opposite image in order to achieve specific objectives that serve a broader strategy. In Trump’s case, his transactional approach to foreign policy—an approach imported from the business world—tends to exclude long-term strategic interests[15] and overarching values from his calculations, while reducing complex issues to simplified and often superficial formulations.

The current war on Iran provides one of the clearest examples. Although changing the behavior of the Iranian regime—or bringing about its collapse—may serve U.S. interests, the central question has always been how such an objective could actually be achieved. Reports by The New York Times on how Trump reached the decision to go to war[16], and his apparent expectation that the Iranian regime would collapse once its senior leadership was removed, reveal a significant misunderstanding of the nature of the Iranian political system. In particular, Trump appears not to have adequately recognized the fundamental differences between the Venezuelan and Iranian regimes. Trump himself reflected this assumption on several occasions when he indicated that he had expected Iran to collapse and surrender in a manner similar to Venezuela.

As military operations progressed, Iran activated its control over the Strait of Hormuz as a strategic weapon, and reopening the strait without the imposition of transit fees subsequently became a U.S. demand in the ongoing negotiations between the two sides. Trump failed to recognize that the international order established under U.S. leadership after the Second World War—the very order he has sought to dismantle—had compelled Iran for decades to abide by its rules and submit to international sanctions without attempting to weaponize its control of the strait as a means of imposing costs on the rest of the world, and without requiring the United States to fire a single shot[17].

Today, Trump has dismantled part of the rules underpinning that international order on the grounds that they fail to serve U.S. interests and impose an excessive burden on the United States. Over time, however, it has become increasingly apparent that this assumption was insufficiently examined and may have rested on a flawed understanding of the strategic benefits that the existing order provided to Washington.

The second source of the Trump case’s distinctiveness concerns credibility. Given that Trump—according to several strands of analysis—pursues irrational policies, one might expect his threats to be taken seriously by his adversaries. Yet he has, in practice, suffered from a credibility deficit in the eyes of both allies and adversaries.

There are two principal reasons for this. The first is the ambiguity and, at times, the illogical nature of his threats. For example, Trump repeatedly warned Hamas that he would “open the gates of hell” in Gaza if the movement failed to comply with Israel’s demands[18], even as Israel was already intensifying its military operations in the territory with few apparent constraints.

The second reason is that Trump has, on more than one occasion, acknowledged that he had deliberately misled others and even boasted about doing so as part of deception strategies coordinated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Hamas and Iran[19]. This creates a unique paradox for the “Madman” strategy: although other actors may be convinced of the irrationality or unpredictability of Trump’s policies, this perception does not automatically lead them to regard his threats as credible.

The third source of the distinctiveness of Trump’s case is the role of technology and the free flow of information, which enable public opinion in the United States, as well as governments and publics abroad, to obtain increasingly detailed information about decision-making processes within the Trump administration and the constraints surrounding its available options.

Historically, discussions of the “Madman” strategy have focused on leaders such as Adolf Hitler, Richard Nixon, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi. These leaders either governed in eras that predated the contemporary technological and information revolution or presided over authoritarian political systems in which domestic public opinion exercised little meaningful influence over policymaking and decision-making processes[20].

Trump’s second administration, by contrast, remains subject to the conventional constraints of a democratic political system, including scrutiny from the media and public opinion. This is reflected in the extensive reporting by The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, which has revealed detailed information about policymaking and decision-making processes within the administration. Such reporting shapes public perceptions of the administration and its performance and generates political pressure that the Democratic Party seeks to exploit in order to constrain the administration and introduce legislation limiting Trump’s ability to use military force[21].

Even if such legislative proposals fail to pass and become law, they nevertheless place Republican lawmakers on record regarding their positions on the war—an outcome Democrats seek to use politically in the upcoming midterm elections in November.

Taken together, these dynamics have encouraged the Iranian regime to place greater reliance on the domestic constraints facing the Trump administration, with the midterm elections providing a particularly important example. The increasing visibility of the limits surrounding the options available to U.S. administrations allows the Iranian regime to assess Washington’s domestic political constraints more accurately. This, in turn, reduces the ability of the United States to leverage uncertainty and strengthens Iran’s bargaining position in negotiations, thereby further limiting the effectiveness of the “Madman” strategy.

The War on Iran: How Did the “Madman” Strategy Become a Trap?

Following the end of the Twelve-Day War between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other in the summer of 2025, it was widely understood that another round of conflict was likely to follow soon. Although Trump repeatedly asserted that Iran’s nuclear program had been destroyed[22]—contradicting numerous reports and leaks suggesting a strong likelihood that the program had not, in fact, been eliminated—the United States and Israel failed to achieve their broader objectives of either changing the behavior of the Iranian regime or bringing about its collapse. Two issues remained particularly central: Iran’s missile program and its support for armed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.

Although media coverage focused heavily on Israel’s role in pushing the United States toward a second military confrontation with Iran, it is important to emphasize that changing the behavior of the Iranian regime has itself long constituted a U.S. interest. The central question, however, has always concerned the means through which that objective could be achieved. Previous U.S. presidents generally relied on various forms of diplomacy as the principal instrument for advancing American interests. Trump departed from this approach not once, but twice, employing the “Madman” strategy at different stages of the current war.

1. The Outbreak of War

Trump’s statements reflect three fundamental assumptions underlying his approach to foreign-policy issues. The first is that threats posed by countries such as Iran and North Korea[23], as well as the war in Ukraine, persisted because of the incompetence of previous presidents rather than because they represented inherently complex strategic challenges. Trump therefore believed that his own skills would enable him to manage and resolve them.

The second assumption is that methods that proved successful in Venezuela would produce similar results in Iran[24]. Trump appears to attach relatively little importance to the differences between individual crises, instead assuming that similar methods can be employed whenever the desired outcomes are broadly comparable.

The third assumption is that previous presidents refrained from using certain instruments to resolve international crises because they lacked sufficient courage, rather than because those instruments were ineffective or carried unacceptable strategic risks.

Applying these assumptions to the decision to go to war with Iran reveals that Trump was heavily influenced by what he regarded as the successful capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the subsequent alteration of the regime’s behavior following the accession of a woman to the presidency. Trump and his supporters viewed this outcome as a remarkable demonstration of American power achieved at minimal cost in both financial and human terms. Trump was even able to gain access to Venezuelan oil and sell it.

Against this backdrop came Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to undertake a similar operation against Iran: decapitating the Iranian regime through a carefully designed plan that would bring its senior leaders together in one location and then strike them simultaneously. The expectation was that such an operation would produce a comparable outcome, either by forcing a change in Iran’s leadership or by enabling opposition forces to seize power[25].

When these actions are assessed through the lens of the “Madman” strategy, it becomes apparent that Trump did not initially rely on explicit threats. Instead, he sought to deceive the Iranians by engaging in diplomatic negotiations while hoping to achieve strategic surprise. Yet this scenario failed to deceive Tehran, not least because Trump had already employed a similar approach during the June 2025 war.

The policymaking and decision-making process further indicates that Trump relied on misleading and insufficiently accurate scenarios. He was also aware that there was no sufficiently compelling justification for war that could easily be presented to the American public. His plans therefore rested on the expectation that the Iranian regime could be brought down over the course of a single weekend, allowing him to boast of a rapid success similar to what had occurred in Venezuela, without having to establish whether Iran actually posed an imminent threat[26].

Trump and his advisers, however, failed to appreciate the profound differences between the structure of the Iranian regime, its ideological foundations, and the significance of assassinating the country’s highest religious authority, on the one hand, and the structure of the Venezuelan regime, on the other. The latter had been deeply weakened by corruption and institutional decay, creating conditions in which its president could be captured without substantial resistance.

2. The Escalation of Military Operations

The Iranian regime’s survival following the initial strike came as a surprise to the U.S. administration. Although the United States and Israel expanded their air campaigns to target Iranian infrastructure and domestic security forces, these attacks failed to undermine the regime. Iran, meanwhile, retained the capacity to launch strikes against Israel and U.S. military bases across the region.

The war began to last considerably longer than Trump had anticipated. It also became clear that targeting and assassinating Iran’s Supreme Leader had prompted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to carry out its earlier threats. These included attacks on U.S. bases in Gulf states, strikes against infrastructure associated with oil facilities, and, ultimately, the successful deployment of naval mines in the shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz, effectively closing the strait and bringing it under Iranian control[27].

Iran leveraged this situation to influence the positions of other countries. This became particularly evident in the rapid shift in European attitudes—from initial support for the United States and Israel at the beginning of the war to a refusal to participate after Washington requested assistance in reopening the Strait of Hormuz[28]. Iran was even able to continue exporting its oil under the watch of the U.S. Navy in an effort to mitigate the impact of the strait’s closure on global energy prices.

In other words, Trump’s irrational decision to assassinate the Supreme Leader ultimately became a trap for the U.S. president. The assassination removed the restraints that had previously discouraged IRGC leaders from carrying out their threats to close the Strait of Hormuz and target Gulf states. The confrontation consequently entered what Robert Pape has described as an “escalation trap”[29].

Trump insisted that he would not retreat without achieving the objectives of the war, even as those objectives were progressively redefined. He claimed that the regime had effectively been changed through the replacement of its leaders and subsequently shifted the emphasis toward changing the behavior of the Iranian regime.

During this phase of escalation, Trump once again turned to the “Madman” strategy, issuing a series of threats intended to force the Iranian regime to submit to his demands. He threatened to target Iran’s energy infrastructure and bridges and even to destroy Iranian civilization altogether[30].

Trump’s primary objective in issuing these threats was to compel Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping. Yet the distinctive characteristics of the Trump case, combined with his lack of credibility, prevented the Iranian regime from taking these threats seriously.

This represents an exceptional challenge to the conventional logic of the “Madman” strategy. The strategy assumes that if an adversary becomes convinced that the leader it faces is genuinely irrational or “mad,” that perception should be sufficient to make the leader’s threats appear credible. In the Iranian case, however, this mechanism failed: perceptions of Trump’s irrationality did not translate into confidence that his threats would actually be carried out, largely because of his credibility deficit.

Trump’s lack of credibility was not the only reason Iranian leaders failed to take his threats seriously. By crossing a fundamental red line on the very first day of the war—assassinating the Supreme Leader, the country’s highest religious authority—Trump effectively freed the Iranian regime from its own previous red lines and restraints.

Thus, even if some within Iran believed Trump’s subsequent threats, complying with his demands was no longer regarded as the optimal response following the assassination of the Supreme Leader. This introduces an additional dimension to the “Madman” strategy: a threat may lose much of its coercive value once the actor has already carried it out—or has undertaken an action even more extreme than the threat itself. After the Iranian regime refused to respond to these threats, Trump was ultimately forced to retreat from them.

3. The Ceasefire and Negotiations

On April 8, 2026, the various parties reached a ceasefire agreement. Although there was initially disagreement over whether Lebanon was covered by the agreement, Iran subsequently succeeded in pressing for its inclusion.

Pakistan played a pivotal role in facilitating the agreement despite the substantial gap between the demands of the two sides. Iran presented a ten-point proposal that included several demands, among them the payment of compensation by the United States and acceptance of a new navigation regime in the Strait of Hormuz under the control of Iran and the Sultanate of Oman[31]. The United States, by contrast, maintained its demands concerning Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, as well as what Washington regarded as Iran’s destabilizing regional activities.

The ceasefire was subjected to several serious tests but nevertheless endured. On the first day, disagreement emerged over whether Lebanon was included in the agreement, before it was subsequently brought within its scope. On April 13, Trump announced a blockade targeting Iranian vessels in the Strait of Hormuz in an effort to place Tehran under additional economic pressure during the negotiations[32]. This was followed by several further violations of the ceasefire.

For his part, Trump sought to influence the course of negotiations by periodically threatening to resume the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz by force, and destroy Iran’s energy sector. The Iranians responded by maintaining their focus on their negotiating demands while rejecting both U.S.-imposed deadlines and American conditions.

The “Madman” strategy therefore failed once again during this conflict, even though Trump lowered the intensity of his threats and made them more specific and operationally feasible in the hope of influencing Iranian behavior. This effort nevertheless failed for several reasons.

Most importantly, Iranian decision-makers had become increasingly aware of the domestic constraints facing Trump. Iran also retained the ability to drive up oil prices globally and within the United States, which would inevitably affect domestic economic conditions and potentially undermine the Republican Party’s prospects in the midterm elections. These factors were compounded by the previously discussed consequences of the assassination of the Supreme Leader and Trump’s broader credibility deficit.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the Trump case does not constitute an exception to the general principles governing the “Madman” strategy, but it does introduce several exceptional dimensions that expand our understanding of its limitations.

Trump consolidated his image as a leader whose conduct systematically departs from conventional standards of rationality across the full spectrum of his policies—a form of dispositional deviation comparable, in this respect, to figures such as Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein. Neither of these leaders succeeded in securing meaningful gains through such an approach. On the contrary, their perceived irrationality imposed clear constraints on their ability to negotiate and bargain effectively.

The principal reason was that their adversaries came to believe that accommodating their demands would not lead to containment or moderation, but would instead encourage further extremism. This dynamic represents one of the principal explanations for the failure of the “Madman” strategy during particular stages of both the war and the negotiations with Iran.

At the same time, the Trump case introduces additional dimensions that are not fully captured by the conventional literature on the strategy. The credibility of Trump’s threats depended not merely on whether the opposing side—Iran—believed them, but also on the ambiguity surrounding some of those threats and, paradoxically, on Trump’s decision to carry out some of the most extreme actions available to him.

Technology and the rapid flow of information also played an important role in enabling Iranian decision-makers to gain a clearer understanding of domestic conditions within the United States, the decision-making process that led Washington into the war, and the limits of the options available to Trump. This informational transparency was reflected in Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s threat that American citizens would face higher oil prices.

Taken together, these dynamics demonstrate that the “Madman” strategy failed in the U.S. approach toward Iran not only because of the strategy’s inherent limitations—which often prevent leaders of Trump’s type from extracting the gains they seek—but also because of factors specific to the Trump case itself, particularly those that severely undermined the credibility and coercive effectiveness of his threats.

References

[1] Jim Sciutto, Barbara Starr, and Zachary Cohen, “Trump Promises North Korea ‘fire and Fury’ over Nuke Threat | CNN Politics,” CNN, August 9, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/08/politics/north-korea-missile-ready-nuclear-weapons.

[2] Joshua Fitt, “Stop Calling the Donald Trump-Kim Jong-Un Relationship a Bromance,” CNAS, September 28, 2020, https://www.cnas.org/publications/commentary/stop-calling-the-donald-trump-kim-jong-un-relationship-a-bromance.

[3] Joshua A. Schwartz, “Madman or Mad Genius? The International Benefits and Domestic Costs of the Madman Strategy,” Security Studies 32, no. 2 (March 15, 2023): 271–305, https://doi.org/10.1080/09636412.2023.2197619.

[4] Alexander Cornwell  and Nidal Al-Mughrabi, “Trump Threatens Hamas amid Push towards next Steps of Gaza Truce | Reuters,” Reuters, October 22, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/vance-visit-israel-with-gaza-ceasefire-uncertain-2025-10-21/.

[5] Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Hassell Street Press, NY: Oxford University Press, 2022).

[6] Ibid.

[7] Joshua A. Schwartz, Op Cit.

[8] Scott D. Sagan and Jeremi Suri, “The Madman Nuclear Alert: Secrecy, Signaling, and Safety in October 1969,” International Security 27, no. 4 (Spring 2003): 150–183.

[9] Roseanne W. McManus, “Crazy Like a Fox? Are Leaders with Reputations for Madness More Successful at International Coercion?” British Journal of Political Science 51, no. 1 (January 2021).

[10] Ibid.

[11] Roseanne W. McManus, “Revisiting the Madman Theory: Evaluating the Impact of Different Forms of Perceived Madness in Coercive Bargaining,” Security Studies 28, no. 5 (October–December 2019): 976–1009.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Max Hoffman, “Trump’s Syria Shambles - Center for American Progress,” Center for American Progress, October 24, 2019, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trumps-syria-shambles/.

[15] Ravi Agrawal, “Trump Is Ushering in a More Transactional World,” Foreign Policy, January 7, 2025, https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/07/trump-transactional-global-system-us-allies-markets-tariffs/.

[16] Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, “How Trump Took the U.S. to War with Iran - The New York Times,” New York Times, April 7, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/us/politics/trump-iran-war.html.

[17] Ahmed Nabil, “Populism and Self-Sabotage: Beyond the Weaponization of the Hormuz Strait,” THE PUNDIT, April 19, 2026, https://thepundit.org/2026/04/19/populism-and-self-sabotage-beyond-the-weaponization-of-the-hormuz-strait/.

[18] Callum Sutherland, “Trump Threatens ‘hell’ on Hamas If They Don’t Accept Deal | Time,” Time, October 3, 2025, https://time.com/7323101/trump-warning-hamas-gaza-peace-deal-deadline/.

[19] Michael Doran, “The Ultimate Deception: How Trump and Bibi Outfoxed Iran,” Hudson Institute, June 13, 2025, https://www.hudson.org/missile-defense/ultimate-deception-how-trump-bibi-outfoxed-iran-michael-doran.

[20] Roseanne W. McManus, op. cit.

[21] Megan Minero, “Senate Votes to Take up Measure to Force Trump to End Iran War - The New York Times,” New York Times, May 19, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/us/politics/senate-iran-war-authorization.html.

[22] The White House, “Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated - and Suggestions Otherwise Are Fake News,” The White House, June 25, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-facilities-have-been-obliterated-and-suggestions-otherwise-are-fake-news/.

[23] Tony Shaffer, “Donald Trump Puts Past Presidents to Shame with North Korea Policies,” The Hill, February 3, 2019, https://thehill.com/opinion/international/432343-donald-trump-puts-past-presidents-to-shame-with-north-korea-policies/.

[24] Mostafa Salem, “As Venezuela Buckles under Trump, Iran Sees an Uncomfortable Parallel,” CNN, January 7, 2026, https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/07/world/venezuela-iran-parallel-trump-latam-intl.

[25] Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, op. cit.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Tom Nichols, “Trump Had No Plan B for Iran,” The Atlantic, March 20, 2026, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/03/trump-iran-war/686470/.

[28] Romain  Fathi, “How the War in Iran Has Brought European Countries Closer Together – without Trump,” The Conversation, April 21, 2026, https://theconversation.com/how-the-war-in-iran-has-brought-european-countries-closer-together-without-trump-281025.

[29] Robert Pape, “Why Escalation Trap Exists,” Why Escalation Trap Exists - by Prof Robert Pape, May 14, 2026, https://escalationtrap.substack.com/p/why-escalation-trap-exists.

[30] Mathias Risse, “‘A Whole Civilization Will Die Tonight:’ The Day the American President Threatened Genocide | Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights,” Harvard Kennedy School, April 8, 2026, https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr-ryan/our-work/carr-ryan-commentary/whole-civilization-will-die-tonight-day-american.

[31] Al Jazeera Staff, “Has Iran’s 10-Point Plan Changed, as JD Vance Claims?,” Al Jazeera, April 9, 2026, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/9/has-irans-10-point-plan-changed-as-jd-vance-claims.

[32] Ben Finley, David Klepper, and Konstantin Toropin, “Trump Likes a Naval Blockade. but Iran Presents Major Differences from Venezuela and Cuba,” PBS, April 23, 2026, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/trump-likes-a-naval-blockade-but-iran-presents-major-differences-from-venezuela-and-cuba.

Originally published by the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, (ACPSS) Cairo, Egypt.