How Multipolarity Forced Trump to Capitulate...For Now
Eric Striker • June 19, 2026
When describing Donald Trump’s new Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, Foreign Policy magazine summarized the seeming end to the war as a “bigger defeat than Vietnam.”
This negation of American militarism has been felt strongest in Israel, where the Jewish state’s executors in Jerusalem and Washington/New York are throwing a fit. JD Vance, thrown in front of the cameras to own the administration’s retreat before their masters, is now openly telling the furious Jewish-American press “Trump is your [Israel] only ally left in the world.”
Has the White House had enough of Jewish domination of its policies? Is the pause in fighting Iran, which through Persian and Shia tenacity has significantly risen the bar for any continuation of hostilities, permanent?
Not so fast.
Passengers pulling the emergency break on the runaway train should not be seen as a change of guard, but rather a hard check placed on the Jewish domination of Washington DC by the combined forces of several major regional actors the American empire relies on to project power on behalf of Israel.
Forcing America to halt a war it was clearly losing and go to the negotiating table took Turkey (NATO’s second largest army), Pakistan (a nuclear power), the Gulf States (hosts of US CENTCOM with $2 trillion dollars parked in American foreign direct investment) and Egypt to pool their immense lobbying and diplomatic resources together. They offered an ultimatum: America must pause to reconsider its pursuit of Israel’s maximalist objective of conquering Iran and breaking it up into multiple rump states or they will form a new power bloc of their own to deal with this problem. As the American empire declines, multipolarity — which is bringing about the genesis of regional power blocs beyond the familiar Chinese, Iranian and Russian alliance — flexed its bicep.
Even as the administration realized it had no choice but to cave under the pressure exerted by the united front of its growing list of disgruntled associates, Trump audaciously demanded they first sign the Abraham Accords embracing Israel before any Iran negotiations began. The exasperated Muslim states responded with a resounding “No!”
This reaction, equal parts panicked and assertive, is a consequence of Iran’s unorthodox decision to focus its strategy on taxing the collaborationist Gulf regimes. The war has so far cost Gulf Cooperation Council states $200 billion dollars worth of economic damage, prompting public threats from Arab monarchs being pummeled to pull their trillions of dollars currently helping keep American tech, real estate, and bonds afloat.
In other words, the Saudis, Qataris and Emiratis pay the American empire to protect them, in addition to offering their soil for US bases and playing nice with Israel.
Yet at the height of the conflict, Iran and its allies quickly destroyed the expensive and difficult to replace THAAD network integral to the air defenses of both the Gulf and Israel. During the commotion, America’s Middle East protectorates endured blow after blow from Iranian missiles and drones, and Washington’s response was to anger another one of its client states — South Korea — by hastily moving its THAAD defense systems from East Asia to Jordan in order to better protect Israel, an act of brazen Jewish favoritism.
Working with America used to make one untouchable, but today it paints a bullseye on your country. The United Arab Emirates thought it could hedge against potential Iranian retaliation by allowing Russian billionaires to use Dubai to skirt sanctions, only to be taken aback by the revelation that Putin doesn’t care what the oligarchs think, preferring to help the IRGC in acquiring Gulf targets, including hotels in its fragile and decadent cities where US soldiers thought they were hiding.
The US’ catastrophic failure to keep up its end of the bargain is forcing Gulf planners to begin considering concessions to Iran, such as paying Tehran not to spare them. The GCC has hitched itself to the US-Israeli wagon as a realist acknowledgement that neither Israel or America can be militarily or economically defeated. The Iranians, who have limitless ability to sustain damage and are constantly innovating in the realm of warfare, have now demonstrated that this assumption is false, which will inevitably force a change in calculation from cowardly and cynical regional actors down the road.
With now a year and a half worth of Barak Ravid’s fairy tales alleging that Trump has had enough of Israel and Netanyahu indexed at Axios, nobody believes it anymore. For this reason, the administration is now forced to make a public spectacle of condemning Israel. This is geared at making America’s Muslim friends and foes — who currently have all the leverage — think Washington has the whip hand, when the reality is that Israel and the Jewish-American elite do. This was proven for the umpteenth time when Trump’s recent command for Netanyahu to “stop!” was immediately met by Israeli strikes on Iran and Lebanon.
As expected, Iran has already made good on its side of the bargain. The Strait of Hormuz has been reopened and a global economic depression has been averted. On the other hand, the major concessions from America to Iran highlighted by commentators in the MOU have stipulations deferring them pending further negotiations, like a hundred-dollar bill being pulled by a fishing line. One of the MOU’s major promises, that Israel’s war in South Lebanon is to immediately cease, continues to be flagrantly violated even at the expense of enormous IDF casualties in recent days.
As for planned talks in Switzerland to actualize the terms of the agreement, they are already failing.
It is unclear whether Benjamin Netanyahu, whose post October 7th wars have largely failed to achieve any strategic objectives, will survive electorally, but favorites to replace him like former IDF chief Eisenkot are just as bloodthirsty.
As for Trump, Witkoff and Kushner’s latest “time out” on Iran, they have so far been lulls to recalibrate with the intent of continuing. There’s no reason to believe this time is any different.
posted by Satish Sharma at
07:19
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