Postwar Peacebuilding by Winners and Losers
Postwar Peacebuilding by Winners and Losers
Losing the War and Winning the Peace
Trump’s miscalculations relating to Iran’s capabilities together with a confusing by boastful claims of that U.S. attacks beginning on February 28 were a glorious success. President Trump seemed to be acting on the implicit premise that the militarily superior political actor automatically sets the terms the ending active warfare while making a transition to peaceful relations. This line of reasoning recalls the 1945 peace diplomacy at which the the winners of the war on the battlefield estabished a framework for peace that reflected this substance outcome. It was expresssed in seveeral domains. Perhaps, most noticeably in structuring the United Nations by giving the five winners of World War II permanent membership and a right of veto in the Security Council, the only organ of the UN system with authority to decide (not merely recommend) and to enforce (and not be in the position of the International Court of Justice that can decide but dependent for enforcement on the Security Council. This winners/losers framework was even more vividly exhibited by the war crimes trials held at Nuremberg and Tokyo. In these judicial proceeding only the international crimes of the losers were subjected to prosecution and punishment while the winners awarded themselves unconditional impunity. Such an outcome in the Japanese trials was aptly dubbed ‘victors’ justice’ by the historian Richard Minear in a book with that title.
The unarticulated premise of Trump’s diplomacy in the Middle East has also proceeded on a basis that only the victors in international armed encountered were entitled and empowered to dictate the terms of restored peace. The central fallacy such an approach relying on the analogy to 1945 peace building arises because of the deeply questionable boast that the outcome in Iran somehow resembles the Allied victory in the World War II sense. For starters, Iran does not accept the outcome as as a defeat as did the Axis powers in 1944-45 in instruments of surrender. Nor are such bizarre claims supported even among mainstream Western commentators who generally regard Iran as the winner, not only by not giving in the Trump demands but by the effective retaliatory measures that have inflicted high costs on the aggressors as well as on the stability of the international system. view by many Western assessments of the outcome.
Beyond cost-benefit calculations, we should never forget that Iran was the victim of unprovoked aggression, and was not the aggressor as were Germany, Italy, and Japan in 1945. This alone should serve to disqualify aggressor governments from framing peace arrangements, not only legally, but by giving weight to populist ideas of legitimacy. The United States somewhat understood this when in 1975 it accepted political defeat in Vietnam and only sought from diplomacy a graceful exit. The aggression, occupation, regime change, and state-building in the Iraq War of 2003 did give the world a bland foretaste of Trump’s reckless launching of the two Iran wars of the last year. Such betrayals of law and legitimacy were highlighted by the criminal attack on Iraq dramatized by the trial of Saddam Hussein, the deposed head of state and steadfast opponent of the US/UK aggression. These betrayals also illustrated brazen instances of absolute impunity for aggressors, somewhat accentuated by the criminal prosecution of Iraq’s head of state, admittedly a wrongdoer but for crimes unrelated to the defense of the sovereign rights of Iraq.
In this second Iran War now in its fourth month, there is further distortion of a rule of law approach to the outcome of recourse to aggressive war clearly prohibited by Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. The aggressor although widely perceived to be the loser of the war insists without yet saying so on being treated as the victors were in 1945. There is this glaring normative difference. In the current context only Iran has the right of self-defense, as delimited in Article 51 of the Charter as it was massively attacked in a manner aggravated by the head Oman mediator’s statement that a negotiated settlement of the dispute concerning Iran’s nuclear program was on the verge of success. And yet the victim of aggression is being subjected by the Trump diplomacy with a take it or leave it ultimatum with a direct threat of a genocidal resumption of the war if Iran rejected what the aggressor was prepared to offer. The victim of aggression is thus expected to confront potentially dire consequences if it refuses the demands of the aggressor.
The extremity and vulgarity of such bullying threats challenge the Iranian leadership to be the adult in the room. Quoting Trump’s language suggests unprecedented departures from the canons of diplomacy to such a one-sided, bloody, extent as to be themselves instances of international crimes associated with prohibited threats. Whether or not enforceable as violations of international law these threats are the clearest possible instances of illegitimate diplomacy.
Trump said the following:
— April 4
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards or you’ll be living in Hell. JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
–April 7
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will,” Trump wrote. “However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world. 47 years of extortion corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran.”
This style of diplomatic terrorism partially worked in Gaza with the connivance of others either too weak or insufficiently motivated to challenge the geopolitical bully. Even the UN was induced to support unanimously the Gaza application of rewarding an extreme instance of lawlessness and punishing further the extreme victimization of the Palestinian people. Iran’s distrust of such a diplomacy in light of this style of diplomacy combined with the background of the 2025 12 Day War which was paused after its goals of destroying Iran nuclear program were falsely proclaimed as achieved, representing an easy and quick victory for the combined aggression of Israel and the United States.
In this later instance Trump insisted in public utterances that Iran was also ‘defeated’ in the first days of the war, claiming the destruction of its virtually its entire naval and missile capabilities. In effect Trump’s diplomacy relied neither on rational arguments, international law rules, nor a genuine diplomatic process. Instead, it has relied for over three months on a weird, unprecedented mixture of irrationality, bullying on-again, off-again threats of state terrorism, inflated and premature claims of victory. It even advanced claims that its the assassination of the Supreme Leader of Iran on Day One of the aggression had produced a regime change in the form of new leadership ready to accommodate U.S demands (the Venezuelan model), a claim that turned out to be totally misleading. In actuality, after this assassination of a civilian, religious leader Iran enjoyed greater support from its population and continuity in its resolve to resist aggression and to devise means of retaliating (Hormuz and U.S. military bases in. Gulf) that exhibited strike capacities making a mockery of Trump’s boast of their destruction.
Trump’s premature victory claims was soon ridiculed as a further monumental miscalculation, overlooking Iran’s learning experience from the June 2025 12 Day War that Western ceasefire diplomacy was an entrapment mechanism. Applying these lessons from the past this second Iran War dragged on ruinously for the world economy. The US Government forced to appreciate the formidable economic and political impacts of Iran’s retaliatory measures, especially the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. 20% of internationally traded oil and gas passed through as well as a vital fertilizer supply chain on which many countries in the Global South depended upon to sustain agricultural productivity and food security for often food vulnerable populations.
In other words, Iran’s failed to blink in response to Trump’s genocidal threats, and hence the US faced a Plan B imperative to retreat being the only effective and least undignified way to cut losses. But this was not to be. Instead of a prudent step back, Trump beset by frustration and fury sought victory by means of bluffs and onr-sided demands disguised as negotiations that Iran, while skeptical, went along with as long as vaguely heading for some sort of mutually acceptable agreement. The only deescalation on the US side was to drop its earlier demands for regime change and an immediate agreement curtailing Iran’s nuclear program.
Current Observations
Beyond its international criminality, the Iran War was never even authorized domestically in the manner contemplated by the US Constitution, much less the UN Charter. It was also never justified at the outset by an explanation of the policy. It has become increasingly more unpopular with the citizenry as its adverse affordability effects st home were experienced. At the same time this partial backdown by Trump infuriated both Iran MAGA hawks wanting corporate access to Iranian oil and diaspora Iranians deeply resentful that regime change in Tehran was no longer on the diplomatic agenda.
Iran, long the rational actor in the encounter with the West on its side seems unwilling to settle for anything less than permanent normalization with both of its adversaries. Understandably, it resists an Israeli style ‘ceasefire’ that continues to violate Iranian sovereignty and views the stoppage of large-scale attacks as only a pause in an ongoing belligerent process rather than as an acceptance of seeking paths to a peaceful future. In view of this past and justified distrust of the US and Israel, Iran seems sensibly determined to insist on a framework of rules and peacekeeping forces committed to the avoidance of a third aggressive war against Iran after a passage of time to regroup. Iran also is demanding a lifting of sanctions and unfreezing of its frozen foreign assets so that it can resume normal state/society relations. Iran seems flexible about agreeing to negotiate at some future time a solution as to the stockpile of the enriched uranium in Iran’s possession. It is quite remarkable that despite the sustained hostility by Israel, including the assassination of nuclear scientists and others, Iran has not addressed the dangers and double standards embedded in the Euro-American indulgence of Israel’s unregulated and covertly acquired arsenal of nuclear weapons.
If the US can be persuaded to drop its threats and bullying, Iran seems willing to commit not only to the opening of the Strait of Hormuz but adding to the future stability of navigational rights of passage. This would be a notable contribution to the public good in relation to the highly interactive character of the world economy, both as to supply chains, inflationary surges, and currency markets. Such an outcome becomes daily less likely if the US continues to punch below the belt to win the peace after its most dangerous global misadventure in more than a century has managed to lose the war.
A Metaphoric Summary
This second Iran War epitomizes the limits of military power in this historical period. This has been previously illustrated by the victories of the militarily inferior side in the most notable anti-colonial wars since 1945. Whether the 20th century nationalist struggles of India, Indochina, Indonesia, Vietnam, Algeria, and South Africa are considered, and variations taken into account, the weaker side militarily controlled the political outcomes, although suffering great losses on its journey to liberation and victory. This is a lesson that the United States and Israel seem unable to learn, believing against the evidence that as in earlier times the militarily superior side always wins wars. The quip attributed to Stalin, ‘how many divisions does the Pope have?’ is illustrative of this militarist mindset deeply embedded in the obsolete consciousness of elite foreign policy advising geopolitical actors.
In the interplay of Iran and the United States there is a metaphorical rendering of the two sides that sheds light on how the conflict has unfolded since Trump reascended the presidency in 2025. The diplomacy that is playing out at present pits an experienced poker player against a veteran chess player. Trump by bluffs in the form of threats seeks to intimidate opponents with better cards, while threatening so convincingly that they fold their better hands rather than wait and see whether the bluff is backed up by a hidden winning hand. Iran quietly measures its rational options under circumstances where the options of the two sides are visible to all. The poker player acts by hidden impulses, as well as assessments of the other, often with impatience. The chess player calculates by analyzing what the opponent is aiming to do, countering with defensive moves while also probing weaknesses to gain an advantage that will if it holds create checkmate opportunities.
In real life, most often a subtle mixture of bluffs, threats, tactics, and capabilities are deployed, with more or less skill, and less rationally in times of change where secrecy and technological innovation play leading roles. Ideas are also crucial. For instance, anti-colonial victories became possible when nationalist ideologies and patriotism were seen as providing callings to resist foreign encroachments. Also, vitally important were the longer, deeper willingness of a people defending their homeland to make sacrifices and prolongs the struggle to the point that the foreign invader become inclined to make transactional assessments of whether the gain is worth the pain.
Iran seems motivated to endure the pain of prolonged resistance, while the US is impatient to cut loose from a poorly calculated launch of an expensive, failed war, blocked only by its autocratic leader who seems psychologically incapable of admitting defeat and grabbing the option of a graceful exit, which would requires the US to impose credible constraints on its warmongering partner.
Global Justice in the 21st Century 
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