The latest ultimatum issued to Iran by President Donald Trump is due to end as this column appears.
What happens next is anybody’s guess.
The president might issue another ultimatum, I have lost count of how many he has issued in the past few weeks, or he might intensify his “special military operation” against the Khomeinist regime in Tehran by using the elite of the US army to capture the Iranian island of Kharg.
Whatever he does, he might render the very word ultimatum meaningless in political and diplomatic lexicon. Ultimatum entered that lexicon more than 2000 years ago when the then “strongman” of Rome Julius Caesar sent an ultimatum (final word) to his arch-enemy Pompey not to cross the River Rubicon with his rebel army on the way to the capital.
“If you do, you’ll die!” was the message. Pompey did and died.
I don’t think we should take Trump’s ultimatum as a “do and die” warning. He is a dealmaker not a bounty hunter.
In any case, he may remember Bill Clinton’s answer to those who asked why the US wouldn’t just go after its foes and eliminate them.
“Yeah!” Clinton commented, “We can do that. But since I know I can kill them tomorrow why do it today when they might change their minds?”
Should we sneer at Trump’s ultimatums (or is ultiamata the plural?) as some smug Europeans do with a smirk?
I think not.
Trump has a native genius for using every opportunity to make his way out of a tight spot with a dexterity that would have made Houdini jealous.
By playing yo-yo with his ultimatums Trump achieves a number of goals.
The first is to show that he is in control of a ticking bomb that could explode in everyone’s face.
For the past few weeks, armchair generals and TV eggheads have been citing Sun Tzu and Clausewitz about the need to have an exit strategy in any war.
He says: I issue an ultimatum and offer a roadmap for negotiations. In fact, his latest 15-points roadmap is labeled “for peace” not just a ceasefire.
To be sure the Khomeinist bunch in Tehran start by rejecting the deal and offer a 6-point plan which they know would be unacceptable to Trump. But these are opening gambits. What matters is to stop a war that is unlikely to produce the results that either adversary hoped for while doing damage to a dozen other nations not involved in this deadly game.
Trump says Tehran has already given him a “big prize”.
He is right.
According to French economic experts the announcement by Tehran that the Strait of Hormuz isn’t close except for “hostile” nations helped a handful of speculators who had “inside information” to make more than $500 million extra profits on stock exchanges.
You have two guesses as to who those lucky gamblers were and where they got their inside information.
In his latest chat about the war Trump mentioned what he sees as his success in Venezuela indicating his wish to repeat it in Iran where, as he says, the baddies have been eliminated, and some “good people” are emerging as credible interlocutors for Washington.
If the latest attempt at engaging the mullahs fails, Trump could blame Tehran for derailing his peace process. And that could go some way towards silencing those who oppose the war in the US and across the globe. That argument could also help persuade the Congress to grant the $200 million extra he says he needs to pursue the war.
At some point Trump would also need to get congressional approval for military engagement beyond the 60-day limit set by law. Again, the claim that he did all he could to obtain peace but failed because of the other side’s intransigence could be helpful.
Furthermore, the latest ultimatum and deal game helps Trump remind everyone that he and not the Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu is in driving seat as far as ending this war is concerned. That clam is bolstered by Israel saying “talk or no talks” it will continue bombing Iran.
However, Trump surely knows that even if Tehran meets all his demands now there is no guarantee it would abide by them beyond his presidential tenure or even after the US mid-term elections if he becomes a lame duck.
After all, seven US presidents have made deals of different kinds with the Khomeinist regime but never managed to change its vicious nature.
A scorpion doesn’t sting as a tactical aberration; it is in its nature to do that.
On Tehran’s side even those “good people” Trump says he has identified as the new ruling clique know that the grand “dealmaker” makes promises that are not in his gift to fulfill. The Islamic Republic has become subject to four sets of sanctions in the past 48 years.
The first set consists of sanctions imposed by the United Nations’ Security Council in seven unanimous resolutions. Who is going to pilot their cancellations and risk being blamed if Tehran re-started misbehaving after a while?
The second set consists of sanctions imposed by the US Congress. Removing them would require bipartisan accord, something of a mirage in an America going through a politico-cultural civil war.
The third set of sanctions consists of those set by the president via executive orders. Trump could remove them with a series of signatures. But even if that happens, rewinding their effects through the complex legal, political and economic systems would need time, much time.
The third set of sanctions, including the notorious snapback mechanism that Trump mentions are those imposed by the European Union. Removing them would require approval by the European Commission, the European Union Parliament and 27 national parliaments plus some regional ones seeing something that won’t happen with a Trumpian whistle.
In other words, the Venezuelan “solution” would just mean kicking the ball down the road. If there is an “Iran problem”, and I have said there is for the past 48 years, the wisest and least problematic solution is regime change.
The mistake that successive US administrations, European powers and some of our neighbors have made is to narrow down the choice in dealing with a rogue regime to appeasement or war and often deciding that the former card trumps the latter.
Between appeasement and war there is a third option: regime change through Iran’s internal political dynamics. A process of people-based change started almost four years ago and in late 2025 developed into the largest national uprising the region has seen in contemporary history.
After mas repression claiming thousands of lives, the uprising seemed to have subsided but re-started with fresh vigor just before the war forced it, I believe temporarily, out of the scene.
A seriously weakened and increasingly unpopular regime is using war as a pretext for more repression while citing patriotism, the last refuge of the scoundrel.
