John Mearsheimer: Trump Must Admit Defeat in Iran

by | Aug 4, 2026 | News | 5 comments

From John Mearsheimer’s new YouTube channel:

In today’s video I’ll explain why I believe a US victory is not possible and why the longer Trump waits to cut a deal with Iran, the worse the outcome for the US.

I’ll argue that Trump would have been wise to settle the war months ago, after the initial bombing campaign failed. Instead, he kept looking for some way to win the war or at least find an off ramp that would allow him to make the case that the US achieved some of its goals and did not walk away from the fight empty-handed. But that search is a futile enterprise. There is no war-winning strategy available to him.

John J. Mearsheimer, PhD, is an American professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. More recently Mearsheimer has attracted attention for co-authoring and publishing the article The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, which was subsequently published as a book.

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