Alan Zendell, June 15, 2026

Anyone but a delusional narcissist like Donald Trump would be mortified. If he were anyone but Donald Trump I would feel empathy for him. Imagine you were in his shoes, heading for a G7 meeting with France, Canada, Germany, the UK, Japan, and Italy. Ignore the formal courtesies and congratulations on achieving a “deal” with Iran, the other leaders despise him and understand full well what a failure his war with Iran has been and how much that has diminished his power and influence.

Trump has spent seventeen months poisoning America’s relationship with all of those countries, and in response, Germany described us as a declining nation, Canada shifted its economic future toward Europe and Asia, Italy accused us of starting an unnecessary war, and the UK government is on the verge of collapse over it. While Trump does a victory lap, everyone else is being very careful to avoid awakening the elephant in the room.

The so-called deal with Iran is simply a sixty-day reprieve from a war which has been a horrific disaster. Every other G7 leader understands that Trump began the war with three objectives, the elimination of Iran’s nuclear threat, bringing down the regime controlled by the ayatollahs and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and destroying Iran’s offensive military power. None of those objectives has been achieved, and it’s unlikely that any of them will be.

Iran’s massive arsenal of missiles and drones is still largely intact, the regime is now totally under the control of the IRGC, and Iran has consistently insisted that it will not give up its right to enrich uranium. The only thing the memorandum of understanding that extends the ceasefire for sixty days accomplished, assuming its signing isn’t derailed before it happens, was re-opening the Strait of Hormuz which was open to shipping from every nation before Trump ordered the attack.

In other words, as of today, the war has accomplished nothing strategically except burying Iran’s enriched uranium under tons of rubble that can easily be cleared, and Trump’s boast that his “deal” is better than Obama’s is pure fiction. The war cost thousands of lives, a large percentage of which were civilians. Some sources estimate the number of deaths at more than 17,000 with several times that many injuries. We’ve lost aircraft, our bases in the Persian Gulf have sustained billions of dollars in damage, and we’ve dangerously reduced our supply of strategic weapons, which will take hundreds of billions of dollars and years to replace. And that doesn’t count the collateral damage to our economy and to America’s social safety net and tax structure. Someone has to pay for this debacle.

Oil will flow again, gas prices will gradually come down, but as always happens in an oil crisis, profiteering, refinery startups and repairs to oil resources damaged during the war will keep them high for many months. One thing that may have been permanently damaged by the Iran war is America’s support for Israel.

Trump is making Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu out to be a pariah. But that’s typical Trump. Four months ago, Trump and Netanyahu were best buddies, and it didn’t take much flattery on the latter’s part with dreams of a brilliant legacy for Trump to convince him to attack Iran based on evidence of imminent danger that has since been shown to be wrong.

Now, when Netanyahu’s agenda has diverged from Trump’s, he’s treating him the same way he treated everyone in Congress whom he considered disloyal. I don’t know whether Israel’s continuing attacks on Hezbollah are warranted or necessary, but all Trump can see is disloyalty to him. We can all see the fallout, however. Anti-semitism is increasing at a rapid rate in North America and Europe, and polls have shown a sharp decrease in Americans’ sympathy for Israel. Not exactly the legacy Bibi promised his friend Donald.

The destruction and death of a failed war are not the only things Trump is bringing to the G7. There’s also the image, broadcast to anyone on Earth willing to pony up $8.99 to watch it, of Trump’s obscene, tasteless notion of how to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. According to Donald Trump, a nation that throughout the twentieth century was a beacon of hope for the world, a place that welcomed their huddled masses and offered succor to people fleeing tyranny and death is now a nation of martial arts fanatics. Is that the image we want to project of who we are to the rest of the world?

Of all of Trump’s despicable antics, turning the south lawn of the White House into a combat zone may be the most offensive. And that’s before we note that it was a for profit event that netted millions for UFC and Paramount, which is now owned by Trump ally David Ellison. And who footed the bill for the profits to Trump’s friends? The American taxpayers, who spent $60 million to put on the event.