President Trump likes his military and diplomatic victories quick, clean and decisive.
On his desk in the Oval Office, he keeps models of the B-2 bombers that took out three Iranian nuclear sites in one night, not quite a year ago. In the opening weeks of the Iran conflict this year, he talked often about replicating his success in Venezuela — “the perfect scenario,’’ he said — shorthand for overthrowing a troublesome leader with one quick commando raid, and replacing him with a pliant, American-friendly successor.
But now, Mr. Trump has hit the stalemate phase of his presidency.
The war with Iran is clearly at that stage. When he declared a cease-fire on April 7, Mr. Trump said on social media that the end of combat operations would be conditional on “the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz.” It wasn’t. Even if commerce now resumes across the strait under a memorandum of understanding still under negotiation, it will still leave the future of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs exactly where they were in February: stuck in a further negotiation that the administration insists will be “time limited,” probably to 60 days.
But the Iranians sense Mr. Trump’s deep reluctance to restart combat operations that are deeply unpopular in the United States, and most Iran experts say they expect Tehran to try to stretch the negotiations for months or years — as they have with past administrations.
Then there is the Ukraine war, a conflict in its fifth year that Mr. Trump famously boasted he would end in 24 hours after taking office. Sixteen months after he was sworn in, he rarely mentions the war anymore, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently complained that he was tired of wasting time in endless negotiations, suggesting that he would be perfectly happy if some other country wanted to step in and play that role.
For their part, the Russians have quietly made clear that they are tired of periodic visits from the president’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Mr. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, according to people familiar with the negotiations. They say they want a stable, diplomatic process, with working groups and regular meetings. They also want an American ambassador to Russia — a job that has been open, astoundingly, for nearly a year.
And there is Gaza. When Mr. Trump flew to Israel to celebrate the release of the last of the living hostages from the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack, he enthused about a 20-point plan that started with the disarming of Hamas, the creation of an international stabilization force and, ultimately, rebuilding Gaza into a gleaming territory of glass office towers and seaside resorts. Eight months after that trip, Hamas has still not disarmed, except in fake, A.I.-generated videos. (One, sent out by Mr. Trump, depicts him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunbathing.)
While more aid is making its way into the territory, Palestinians are still sleeping in tents, the rat-infested rubble has not been cleared, and Mr. Netanyahu announced last week that the Israeli military would expand its control to about 70 percent of the Palestinian enclave.
Perhaps all of this is the inevitable result of a president with huge ambitions running into the brick walls of global realities. Perhaps it is the result of overreach, as Mr. Trump — infused with the success of his first two military adventures, into Iran and Venezuela — assumes that there is no task too big for the U.S. military.
Some experts suggest that it arises from a fundamental misunderstanding of American power. As one of Mr. Trump’s close aides said recently, destroying nuclear sites from the air is what America does best, and controlling political events in nations like Iran, Russia and Ukraine is what the United States does worst.
More than likely, however, is that the stalemates along with Trump’s other many failures are due to the fact that he is a moron with a record of total failure as a “businessman” who is surrounded by people just like himself — fools, assholes, failures, and losers.