Trump Is Trapped and Knows It
On 20 April 2026, I was on “The Chris Hedges Report” talking about where the Iran war is headed. Chris and I mainly concentrated on trying to make sense of what President Trump is doing to end the conflict on favorable terms for the US. Although many believe that he will escalate after the two-week ceasefire expires on Wednesday (April 22), I made the case that I thought that was unlikely for two reasons. First, he cannot win a military victory if he goes up the escalation ladder as the Iranians hold most of the cards. Second, escalation would prolong the war and further reduce the oil and gas flowing out of the Persian Gulf (and probably the Red Sea), which is likely to take the world economy off the precipice.
Given this ominous prospect, Trump has a powerful incentive to cut a deal with Iran as soon as possible. But the chief problem he faces is that Israel does not want a deal. It wants the US to continue the war and try to beat Iran into submission. Given the stranglehold the Israel lobby has on Trump, he does not have much maneuver room. All of this is to say, even if he cuts some sort of deal with Iran, Israel and its minions in the US will work overtime to undermine it. Trump is boxed in and he knows it, which I think explains much of his erratic and outrageous behavior in recent weeks.
In short, Israel and its lobby bamboozled Trump into starting a losing war against Iran and now they won’t let him end it.
The deeper issue is not Trump’s personality. It is that U.S. military superiority no longer reliably translates into durable political outcomes. Washington can still escalate, but escalation is no longer the same thing as control. Once a weaker actor can impose enough economic and strategic cost, American power starts to look less like order-making power and more like a system that can destroy, but not settle.
Thank you for your bravery & masterful insights Professor, the world is a better place for it