THE AMERICAN POSEIDON ADVENTURE

The “Surrender of Versailles” signed by Trump yesterday was gobsmacking, both for its content and its historical overtones. The Wall Street Journal and other sites are reporting it as a loss/surrender of the United States, a win for Iran by providing it with financing to rebuild, allowing it to keep the nuclear material, removing the sanctions so Iran can begin to make billions $$$ selling its oil anywhere, and setting the stage for Iran to ultimately control the Strait of Hormuz if it decides to do so. Iran had none of these opportunities before Trump attacked, spending $100 billion of taxpayer dollars to achieve not only nothing, but actually trigger salutary long-term outcomes for Iran. The most insidious outcome aside from the expenditure of billions, we could have used at home, is the loss of lives: American soldiers, Iranian children as well as the number of injuries to American soldiers and Iranian civilians. 

America’s allies expressed concern over the unilateral nature of Trump’s attack on Iran and the economic disruption that followed. They question why the administration settled on terms that, in their view, leave Iran in a stronger position than before the conflict began. If Iran had truly posed an imminent existential threat to the United States or its allies, a far broader military campaign might have been justified and supported. Yet the administration itself repeatedly characterized the threat in dire terms.

The episode reflects a familiar pattern: grand self-aggrandizing promises, dramatic rhetoric, and a final outcome that falls far short of the original claims. Trump viewed the confrontation not as a response to a real threat, but as an opportunity to his place mug in halls of history like Napoleon, Patton, Washington or maybe David? Instead, the result has left allies unsettled, adversaries emboldened, and Americans holding the bag. Israel and other allies now know the essence of a Trump relationship: selfish, deceitful, damaging and abandonment. 

What strikes me is the historical symbolism.

The agreement was signed at Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles was signed there on June 28, 1919, formally concluding World War I. Most historians have argued the treaty’s harsh provisions helped create the economic and political conditions that contributed to the rise of extremism in Germany and, ultimately, World War II.

The armistice that actually ended the fighting had been signed earlier, on November 11, 1918, in the Compiègne Forest, 50 miles northeast of Paris inside railroad Car 2419D. Twenty-two years later, after the fall of France in June 1940, Adolf Hitler ordered the same railcar returned to the site so that French representatives could sign their surrender to Germany in the very place where Germany had acknowledged defeat in 1918. It was a calculated act of historical theater and humiliation.

This Versailles agreement is an American retreat rather than a diplomatic achievement. The irony is difficult to ignore: Versailles, a place associated with triumph, punishment, unintended consequences, and the seeds of future conflict.

If one were seeking complete historical symmetry, Trump should have signed the surrender not at Versailles but at the museum housing the replica of Car 2419D. There, amid one of history’s most famous symbols of surrender and reversal, the setting would have matched the narrative Trump’s agreement represents. The choice of Versailles ensures that Trump’s strategic folly will echo in history.

Stop Trump’s desecration, devaluation and destruction of our rights, security and national integrity.  Do the right thing.

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