Trump should just admit he was wrong

Although we do not know the details of the supposed deal between the United States and Iran – or even whether such a deal will ultimately be reached – anyone with a triple-digit IQ understands that Israel and the United States made a colossal mistake when they started the war. None of their stated goals have been achieved: the Iranian regime has not collapsed, it has not surrendered its nuclear stockpile, and its missile and drone capabilities are intact. It has demonstrated that it can close the Strait of Hormuz at any time if it wishes to inflict significant damage on its neighbors. All the boasting and bluster of US President Donald Trump and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the past three months has been exposed as hot air.

Once the deal is done, the Trump administration will slather buckets of lipstick on this pig and insist that this is some kind of strategic victory. Few observers will be convinced, however, and such efforts will only make the president and his coterie of sycophantic advisers look ridiculous. There is simply no credible way to make this debacle a success. The more they try to do this, the more delusional they will appear.

Although we do not know the details of the supposed deal between the United States and Iran – or even whether such a deal will ultimately be reached – anyone with a triple-digit IQ understands that Israel and the United States made a colossal mistake when they started the war. None of their stated goals have been achieved: the Iranian regime has not collapsed, it has not surrendered its nuclear stockpile, and its missile and drone capabilities are intact. It has demonstrated that it can close the Strait of Hormuz at any time if it wishes to inflict significant damage on its neighbors. All the boasting and bluster of US President Donald Trump and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the past three months has been exposed as hot air.

Once the deal is done, the Trump administration will slather buckets of lipstick on this pig and insist that this is some kind of strategic victory. Few observers will be convinced, however, and such efforts will only make the president and his coterie of sycophantic advisers look ridiculous. There is simply no credible way to make this debacle a success. The more they try to do this, the more delusional they will appear.

This got me thinking: What if Trump just admitted he made a mistake? Admitting his mistakes has never been his strong point, but he is not alone in this regard. Politicians almost never admit their mistakes – and certainly not on anything important – even when it is obvious to almost everyone that they made a mistake. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson continues to defend Brexit, for example, and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo still insists that invading Iraq in 2003 and breaking the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran during Trump’s first term were wise decisions.

This reluctance to acknowledge obvious errors is somewhat puzzling. We all know that no one is infallible and that foreign policy is an uncertain business, in which even the best-laid plans can fail. No leader succeeds at everything, even if he is wiser and less impulsive than Trump (the bar is certainly low, of course). Most of us also learn that when we make a mistake, the best thing to do is acknowledge the mistake, learn from the experience, and try not to repeat it. Obviously, a leader who continues to make costly mistakes will eventually pay the price – and rightly so – but civil servants who, for the most part, perform well and have the courage to admit their occasional mistakes could become more popular if the public recognized that they were doing their best and appreciated their honesty.

Yet few leaders seem willing to take this path. Autocrats are particularly reluctant to admit mistakes, because their hold on power is usually based on the cult of personality and the illusion that they are infallible. But even Democratic leaders are reluctant to admit mistakes when in power, if only because they know their opponents will be ready to pounce at the slightest admission. Take for example the following U.S. presidents: John F. Kennedy took full responsibility for the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Barack Obama acknowledged his early decision to appoint Tom Daschle to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (which backfired when Daschle’s tax irregularities came to light), and Ronald Reagan more or less admitted that the Iran-Contra affair was a mistake. But such moments are rare. When U.S. President George W. Bush was asked in 2004 to recall the mistakes he made during his first term, he couldn’t identify a single one. If you want to see politicians admit they made a mistake, you’ll usually have to wait until their memoirs are published, and even then you might be disappointed.

But Trump has been a norm breaker throughout his political career and someone whose Teflon-like qualities eclipse even Reagan’s. Remember: this is the guy who said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing any voters, and I’m sorry to say that boast turned out to be one of his most accurate statements. If any recent American president could stand in front of the cameras, admit he made a big mistake, and then move on, it’s Trump. Indeed, he has done so before, although it is questionable whether his past acts of contrition were sincere.

And maybe it’s not that difficult. Trump could start by recalling that Iran has long been a thorny problem, one that none of his predecessors managed to resolve either. He could say that he had hoped to resolve the problem once and for all and explain that he had good reason to believe that a new round of bombing would work. He can point out that the regime is unpopular and was forced to quell a wave of protests earlier this year. This calculation turned out to be very wrong, but in classic Trumpian fashion, he could remind people that nothing is ever 100% certain, say that his job is to make difficult decisions, and then blame that error on the bad advice he received from various quarters. Here he could point the finger at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose hawkishness has done Trump no favors and who is an increasingly unpopular figure in both the United States and Israel. Given how toxic Netanyahu has become, throwing him under the bus might even increase Trump’s popularity at this point.

After insisting that his intentions were laudable and that his gamble seemed like a worthwhile one, Trump could then claim that he learned a lot from this episode and compare it to his predecessors. I hear it now: “Unlike sleepy Joe Biden, who never changed his mind on anything and kept making the same mistakes, I am a very stable genius who is constantly learning and adapting.” And then he might change the subject to something else, like the controversial White House ballroom project.

Should I expect Trump to take this approach to the biggest mistake of his error-prone second term? To be honest, no. Although he has occasionally admitted mistakes in the past (usually when forced to fire one of his many incompetent nominees), I suspect he believes that admitting serious mistakes would diminish his aura of power, encourage more people to openly challenge him, and shatter his dream of being remembered as a great president, unlikely as that seems now. His MAGA base would likely continue to support him, but they might be all he has in a few months.

By delaying the end of the conflict, Trump’s attempt to wrest the illusion of victory from the clutches of a debacle deepens the pain the United States and its allies are suffering and does further damage to Trump’s own reputation. It would be better for everyone if he just admitted he made a mistake and moved on. But as anyone who has had to take their car keys away from an aging parent knows, stubborn seniors are often incapable of seeing what is in their own best interest.

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