The Atlantic published "Trump’s Fundamental Misunderstanding in Iran — What makes the nation suffer helps the regime thrive" by Karim Sadjadpour on April 7, 2026. Sadjapour's central argument: The architects dictating the strategies behind Trump's instigation and conduct of this war against Iran display a fundamental ignorance of both the battle they are fighting and any method to win it. In that author's expert dissection of the "arc of history" of Trump's proclaimed enemy, i.e., Iran's ruling Shiite regime since 1979, any military victory over that regime by the U.S. is an existential impossibility. This is because the very definition of the regime's existence is (1) diametric opposition to the United States and (2) absolute rejection of the right of Israel to exist.
For Iran's current regime, there is no "peaceful negotiation" on these points, no ambiguity of commitment, no possibility of give-and-take. If the options presented to these men by their enemies are (1) negotiated capitulation vs. (2) being annihilated, they will choose the latter. Why? Because that existence is based on the intractable belief in, and commitment to, unlimited defiance to the will of either American or Israeli leaders, or to any possibility that either enemy has a say in Iran’s methods of government. (As Sadjapour says, previous cooperation with Obama did not require them to reduce this defiance, only provide technical cooperation.)
Fine, so Iran's current political/military regime chooses destruction over cooperation. Are these the options that the American people actually want to offer them? My answer is "No," and the history of the American union, and its stance on human ethics and morality since our own Revolution, also answers "No."