US President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted that no agreement to end the American and Israeli war against Iran will be reached without what he described as the “complete and unconditional surrender” of Tehran.
Trump stated that “after that, and after selecting a great and acceptable leader, we and many of our brave and wonderful allies and partners will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction. Iran will have a great future.”
Many supporters of the war on Iran, particularly in circles known for adopting positions aligned with Israel, including analysts from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, have backed Trump’s call and regard his demand for Iran’s full surrender as logical.
This current believes that Washington is not interested in achieving a partial victory or risking the continued dominance of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or other hardline elements within the Iranian system in exchange for concessions that might have been acceptable before the war began. According to this perspective, ending the conflict without Iran’s unconditional surrender could lead to another war in the future.
Trump’s Ambition and Its Contradictions
In a contribution published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, researcher Edmund Fitton Brown argued that such surrender cannot be imposed without a broader American military commitment, but that it could potentially be achieved through regime change.
However, several experts who spoke to Al Jazeera Net suggested that Trump’s call forms part of a pattern of statements that have continued since the beginning of the attacks on Iran. These statements have included repeated demands and threats that sometimes appear contradictory, yet give Trump flexibility in determining when to end the fighting or declare victory.
Professor Osamah Khalil, a historian at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in New York, stated that Trump’s demand for Iran’s unconditional surrender is “a way to distract Americans from the realities of the conflict”.
Khalil added that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “launched a war of choice believing their decapitation strategy would force Iran to surrender and cause the collapse of its military and government. Instead, Tehran’s response has significantly reduced energy supplies from the Gulf and threatened the global economy.”
In the same context, Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, an expert in international affairs at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Texas, described Trump’s call for Iran’s surrender as “the latest shift in the evolving list of objectives he has articulated”, adding further uncertainty regarding the ultimate American goal in the conflict with Iran.
Between Surrender and Victory
Since 1979, hostility toward Iran has become a near consensus within American policymaking circles, regardless of party affiliation. Democrats and Republicans alike have maintained strategic opposition to Iran following the success of its Islamic Revolution.
Trump views this legacy from a specific perspective. In his view, seven previous American presidents treated Iran as a threat but merely managed the conflict without resolving it.
Trump’s approach relies on a particular intellectual framework that underpins his movement toward war with Iran, despite his repeated promises during three election campaigns not to launch foreign wars, especially in the Middle East.
This school of thought believes conflicts must be resolved decisively. Its reasoning draws on historical interpretations of twentieth century wars, arguing that conflicts resolved through clear and recognised victories have later produced lasting peace.
Advocates of this view often cite the complete defeat of Germany and Japan during the Second World War. Both countries later experienced long periods of peace after acknowledging total defeat and surrendering to the victorious powers. They also point to the Vietnam War, in which the United States and its southern allies were defeated while North Vietnam achieved a decisive victory that ultimately unified the country, later allowing improved relations between Washington and Hanoi.
However, former White House and US State Department official Charles Dunne questioned this argument, stating that it stems from “a misunderstanding of history and of the details of the American military situation”.
He told Al Jazeera Net that “the last time I heard language like this was regarding Japan before the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. After Japan’s unconditional surrender, General Douglas MacArthur oversaw an occupation that lasted for years and included a complete restructuring of Japan’s political system. That is something the United States cannot realistically do in Iran today.”
This intellectual current, influential within Christian Zionist circles and within the current Trump administration, does not limit itself to examples of surrender. Its advocates argue that conflicts that end without a decisive defeat and full acknowledgement of loss rarely produce genuine peace.
They often refer to the Korean War of 1950 to 1953, which ended only in an armistice despite millions of casualties, leaving the conflict technically unresolved to this day.
Using similar reasoning, Christian Zionist thinkers argue that Israel’s failure to convert its military victories into complete and acknowledged defeat by Palestinians and Arabs has allowed the conflict to continue until today. From this perspective, Trump’s narrative suggests that peace with Iran can only be achieved through its complete and unconditional surrender.
“Trump Does Not Understand Iran”
Despite the reported death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, authority within the Iranian system remains decentralised across military institutions, religious leadership, and a range of political bodies. This distribution of power has enabled the system to endure thus far.
David Mack, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and currently a specialist at the Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera Net that “Trump does not understand Iran and its thousands of years of history. Tehran has methods of absorbing aggression and turning it to its advantage.”
According to the Washington Post, a classified report issued by the US National Intelligence Council, the central body coordinating America’s eighteen intelligence agencies, concluded that even a large scale military attack on Iran would not bring down its deeply rooted military and administrative institutions.
The report examined scenarios involving both short and extended American military campaigns. In both cases, it concluded that Iran’s religious and military institutions would likely maintain continuity of authority.
Professor Osamah Khalil also noted that achieving unconditional surrender would be unlikely without a large scale ground invasion of Iran, a scenario that lacks public support and would be extremely difficult given Iran’s geography and the size of its military and paramilitary forces.
He added that “while Trump and Netanyahu may publicly claim they are winning the conflict, the best outcome they can realistically hope for now is a costly victory that leaves significant economic and political destruction in its wake”.
Barbara Slavin, an Iran specialist at the Stimson Center in Washington, commented to Al Jazeera Net on Trump’s demand for surrender, saying that “he wants to appear as a strong and decisive leader. I can assure you he will accept less than that from the Iranians”.
