“We’ve won.” Outside the White House on March 20th, Trump declares victory in Iran. This is not unusual. He has done it so many times since the war started three weeks or so before. He will do so again.
Immediately afterward, he admits the Iranian military are still blocking the Strait of Hormuz. Which they are. But he says that will be a “simple manoeuvre” and “safe” to open. Which it won’t. Then he says the US nonetheless needs “a lot of help” that America’s Nato allies don’t have “the courage” for.
Asked by a reporter how he actually proposes to do it, he says “I may have a plan or I may not.” Then says the strait will “open itself at a certain point.” Then reiterates that Iran has been “defeated”.
The next day, March 21st, he issues a new threat on his personal social media site, TruthSocial. “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP”.
Surely though, winners don’t need ultimatums.
It has been a very unusual time in US politics, capped by the recent local election result in Florida in which legislative district 87 was won by the Democrats. This means that, at the state level, Mar-a-Lago is now located in a Democrat-controlled area.
But to truly understand how mad the past few weeks have been, you have to go past the often much saner-seeming national headlines about what the Trump administration is doing and see what he’s actually been saying.
On Monday 23rd Trump posts again on TruthSocial. “I AM PLEASED TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES.”
That goes up just before the New York Stock Exchange opens, which is very convenient. But the US isn’t bombing Iran’s power plants now, to which Iran had threatened to respond in kind, so that’s something.
I’ve written before about the president’s declining health and acuity, and how those things might mean his ability to defy all laws of political gravity may finally be wearing off. He has been unable to shake attention on the Epstein files, even from some parts of his MAGA base. The economy is collapsing and the price of living in the US is skyrocketing.
Trump’s approval rating has been steadily slipping – in recent polls, 56% of Americans disapprove of his presidency. And in Iran, he seems to have found himself in a corner he can’t wriggle or bluster out of.
So let’s recap.
The first joint US-Israel strikes on Iran happened February 27th. Iran immediately retaliated with ballistic missiles. The following day, air strikes killed supreme leader Ali Khamenei and several of his family.
Then, February 28 on TruthSocial: “The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE … Thank you for your attention to this matter. PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”.
One of the first places bombed transpired to have been a girls’ school, killing 168 civilians, most of them children. March 2, TruthSocial. “What most people understand is that they are only complaining BECAUSE I DID IT and, if I didn’t do it, they would be screaming — Why didn’t “TRUMP” attack Iran, he should do it, IMMEDIATELY?”
The president spends several minutes of a March 2 ceremony for Medal of Honor recipients talking about curtains. On March 3, he forgets where his father had been born.
March 3, on TruthSocial: “The United States is stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP”. On March 4, Trump lashes out at Spain, threatening to end all trade after prime minister Pedro Sánchez refused to allow the US to use Spanish bases.
Two days later, there’s a bizarre moment at a White House event celebrating Miami’s US soccer league victory. “When you see somebody walking down the street without their legs – without the arms – whose face is so badly affected and hurt, it mostly came from, 95%, Soleimani and Iran,” the president tells a confused-looking Lionel Messi and his teammates.
March 6, TruthSocial: “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER! “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN (MIGA!).” Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Later that day, news breaks that the White House has reached out to president Zelenskyy of Ukraine, to ask for assistance in dealing with Iranian drones.
In the final years of his totalitarian reign, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, was a deluded megalomaniac. Surrounded by yes-men too terrified to tell him the truth, he became increasingly detached from reality. He was prone to fly into a rage at perceived slights, or make drastically consequential decisions on impulse, often undermining his relationships with key allies.
The Shah spent money outrageously, especially on jets for the Iranian air force, which he adored. But the country had neither the pilots nor the supplies necessary to maintain such airpower – the Shah had driven the country into bankruptcy. But he still held lavish parties, where champagne literally flowed from fountains while ordinary Iranians suffered, and resentment bubbled.
“This was a regime that had both constantly lied to its people and, whenever pressed, stalled for time,” author Scott Anderson recounts in his 2025 history of the 1979 revolution, King of Kings.
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The parallels between Trump and the Shah in his last days are striking. Anderson writes that the US ambassador to Iran in the late 1970s was frustrated by the Shah’s “‘some people are saying’ rhetorical device.” The Shah at one point summoned the ambassador to his palace to claim “that ‘many people believe’ the United States was secretly driving” efforts to destabilise him.
Pahlavi was conspiratorial and at the same time, needy. “Like the jealous lover who demands constant reassurance of his partner’s loyalty, joined to the Shah’s insinuations of American treachery was his unceasing need for American affirmation – specifically, in the form of praise and compliments.”
It’s almost spooky.
March 7, TruthSocial: “Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
At a press conference on March 9th, Trump appears to forget what day it is.
Then, March 10, TruthSocial. “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively at a standstill since the war began.
March 12, TruthSocial: “The United States of America looks very much forward to hosting the FIFA World Cup. Ticket sales are “through the roof!” It will be the Greatest and Safest Sporting Event in American History.”
On March 13, Trump mixes up press secretary Karoline Leavitt with former advisor Kellyanne Conway, who last worked for him six years ago.
That same day, on TruthSocial: “Iran had plans of taking over the entire Middle East, and completely obliterating Israel. JUST LIKE IRAN ITSELF, THOSE PLANS ARE NOW DEAD! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
TruthSocial is the president’s own social network, which he started when he was kicked off what was then called Twitter after stoking his followers into the January 6 attack on the Capital. Its parent company, Trump Media and Technology Group, in which the president is the majority shareholder, has been burning through cash at a truly dizzying rate, losing $712.1 million last year with just $3.7 million in revenue. Yes, you read that right.
But the problem with TruthSocial is deeper than that. It is obviously not a viable social network, but it is a filter-bubble: a place that exists entirely as a sealed-off playground environment purely for the president to post, for an audience of exclusively die-hard fans, fake accounts, and bots. There is also the occasional journalist pushing through their migraine to check in on the president’s unfettered id.
And unfettered it certainly is.
March 14, TruthSocial: “Many Countries, especially those who are affected by Iran’s attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending War Ships, in conjunction with the United States of America, to keep the Strait open and safe.”
His posts on there are deranged. Pretty much any single one of them would obliterate a presidency in remotely normal times, and in a remotely normal media environment. But they rarely cut through to the general public.
There are a few reasons for this. Partly, people are exhausted. I’m exhausted. You’re exhausted. It’s relentless. Trump has been saying crazy stuff, posting crazy stuff, forever. It’s not even “Dog Bites Man” at this point, it’s just “Dog Shits. Again”.
His verbal tics are simply infuriating to read. He’s taken to appending “thank you for your attention to this matter” at the end of almost every post. He capitalises the first letter of half the words in them seemingly at random. Sometimes he just posts in all-caps.
Most of them are near-impossible to quote. They are just… massive blocks of stream-of-consciousness text. These ones I’m quoting are edited highlights. The full versions of some of them run to hundreds of words.
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On March 15, Trump appears to forget the name of the new president of Venezuela – whose predecessor he toppled. The following day he appears to forget one of his slogans – “drill baby drill”. Instead, after some grasping, he manages to come out with “dig we must.”
Having mere weeks ago had to deal with Trump threatening to invade Denmark, America’s Nato allies largely respond with resounding “thanks, but no thanks”. This enrages the president. “I have never heard him so angry in my life,” says Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator and long-time Trump bootlicker.
March 17, TruthSocial: “The United States has been informed by most of our NATO “Allies” that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran. We no longer “need,” or desire, the NATO Countries’ assistance — WE NEVER DID! In fact, speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
On March 18 he asks a room of Irish-Americans on St. Patrick’s Day if they’ve heard of St. Patrick. During a joint appearance two days later at the White House with the Japanese prime minister, Trump says: “Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor?” It does not get a laugh.
March 20, TruthSocial. “Without the U.S.A., NATO IS A PAPER TIGER! They didn’t want to join the fight to stop a Nuclear Powered Iran. Now that fight is Militarily WON, with very little danger for them, they complain about the high oil prices they are forced to pay, but don’t want to help open the Strait of Hormuz, a simple military maneuver that is the single reason for the high oil prices. So easy for them to do, with so little risk. COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
By the time of his downfall, Anderson writes, Pahlavi “had created around him a vast zero-sum power structure where any one person’s gain was another’s direct loss, a political shark tank in which all players were keenly attuned to the smell of blood in the water.” Eventually, with all his former allies alienated by his egoism, that included the Shah himself.
There’s obviously a lot more to the story of the 1979 Iranian revolution. The carelessness of colonial powers. The vast riches that come with oil. The blindness of the American diplomatic machine to what was actually happening on the ground. The complex dynamics between hardline clerics that meant the eventual Ayatollah Khomenei slipped under a lot of radars.
But at its heart, the fall of the Shah – the “King of Kings” – is a story of hubris. Of the cost of arrogance and the fate of tyrants. An all-powerful ruler who sets forces into motion that slowly, invisibly, and remorselessly overwhelm him. It’s a story about how those forces build for decades until suddenly, all at once, the unimaginable becomes the inevitable.
On this very same ground, Trump seems to be experiencing the laws of political gravity – laws to which he has seemed magically immune for a decade. Even if his ceasefire were real, he has still humiliated himself – the only way Iran would be at the negotiating table at all is if the US has offered them the farm.
If this ground is where the downfall begins – the moment when, as it did for the Shah, the unthinkable becomes the inevitable – there is no small amount of poetry in that.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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