GOP strategist reveals 'the greatest irony' to Trump's Iran surrender

17 June

U.S. President Donald Trump attends a working lunch with the leaders of G7 and the Middle East during the G7 summit, in Evian-les-Bains, France, June 16, 2026.

As information emerges about President Donald Trump’s peace deal to end his war with Iran, there has been no shortage of criticism about the many concessions it offers from the American side. According to longtime Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, Trump’s surrender has not only been a major loss for the U.S., but its greatest irony may be that it validated the actions of one of the president's predecessors and top adversaries: Barack Obama.

On Wednesday, Schmidt explained what he asserts are the three looming ironies to Trump’s failed “excursion” to Iran.

First was the very fact that “the president who thundered that there would be nothing less than ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!’ now appears prepared to conclude his war by accepting an agreement that bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the diplomacy he once condemned as treasonous. If the reported Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is signed this week, the United States will have spent months at war, exhausted enormous military resources, suffered American casualties, destabilized the global economy, and emerged not with the destruction of the Iranian regime, but with another negotiated framework. That’s not ‘unconditional surrender.’ It’s negotiation. It’s compromise. It’s the very thing Donald Trump spent a decade telling the American people was weakness. The irony is staggering.”

Then Schmidt raised Trump’s assertions regarding Obama’s previous deal with Iran.

“There is another irony that deserves attention because history has a wicked sense of humor,” wrote Schmidt. “Donald Trump built much of his foreign policy identity around destroying Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran. He called it ‘the worst deal ever negotiated.’ Republicans spent years portraying the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as an act of appeasement. The accusation was simple. Obama negotiated with terrorists. Obama rewarded aggression. Obama was weak.”

Now in the aftermath of Trump’s war, says Schmidt, it is clear which president had the wiser approach.

“Barack Obama negotiated before there was a war,” writes Schmidt. “Donald Trump fought the war first — then he negotiated. Obama’s critics promised that strength would produce a dramatically better outcome. Instead, America appears poised to arrive at another agreement centered on sanctions, inspections, nuclear limitations, implementation timelines and economic incentives — the very architecture that Republicans spent years condemning.”

And according to Schmidt, “The road between those two agreements is measured not simply in dollars, but in blood. The cost and destruction have been immense. Entire regions have been destabilized. American military stockpiles have been depleted. Strategic deterrence has been tested. Global markets have been shaken. The prestige of American power has been diminished because maximalist promises created expectations that reality could never satisfy.”

Finally, according to Schmidt, “The greatest irony of all may be this: Barack Obama was vilified for negotiating with Iran. Donald Trump may ultimately be remembered for fighting a costly war only to negotiate over many of the same questions. History has a cruel way of exposing the distance between rhetoric and reality. That distance is measured in lives, treasure and broken promises — and it is measured by the judgment of history, which has never accepted slogans as substitutes for success.”

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