As four-party talks among Iran, the US, Qatar, and Pakistan got underway in Geneva, Donald Trump once again resorted to the language of threats and intimidation in an interview with Fox News. He warned about the Strait of Hormuz, threatened Iran with renewed attacks, made remarks outside diplomatic norms regarding the return of the Iranian negotiating delegation, and, in unusually direct comments, personally targeted Iran's president.
This coincidence raises an important question for analysts: If the US remains confident in its ability to achieve its objectives through pressure and threats, why is it now sitting at the negotiating table in Geneva?
The answer lies in the distance between the narrative of victory and the reality on the ground.
When the US and Israel launched their joint military operation against Iran on February 28 last year, their objective was not merely to inflict military damage. Numerous indicators and official statements suggested that the initial calculation was that simultaneous blows against Iran's political structure, military command, defense capabilities, and strategic infrastructure could quickly force Tehran to accept Washington's political demands. There is considerable evidence that US assessments went even further, expressing strong confidence in the possibility of generating widespread instability or even a collapse of Iran's decision-making structure.
Subsequent developments, however, demonstrated a significant gap between those initial objectives and the actual outcome. Iran's political structure did not collapse. Its decision-making system did not disintegrate. Its capacity to respond was not eliminated. Nor did Tehran retreat from its core positions on strategic issues. Most importantly, the US gradually realized that even overwhelming air superiority and access to the world's most extensive military capabilities do not necessarily translate into the ability to impose political will on Iran.
Under such circumstances, the return to negotiations reflects not the achievement of war objectives, but rather an acknowledgment of the limitations of the military option and a clear retreat from earlier positions. In strategic terms, negotiations begin when decision-makers conclude that continuing the previous course would impose greater costs than the benefits it might produce. Put differently, if Washington truly believed that several additional rounds of pressure could achieve its maximal objectives, it would have been more logical to continue the military track than to go to great lengths to establish the Geneva negotiating framework.
From this perspective, Trump's recent remarks should be understood within the framework of "perception management after failure." He faces a serious political challenge: How can one enter a war with ambitious objectives, fail to achieve those objectives, then move to negotiations while still preserving the image of a winner?
Trump's answer is narrative-building.
He seeks to portray negotiations not as a consequence of the limits of US power, but as a product of US strength. His repeated threats, disparaging rhetoric, and constant display of readiness for military action should be understood in this context. The primary audience for these statements is not Tehran. Rather, they are aimed at managing American public opinion, reassuring regional allies, and preventing the emergence of a perception of strategic failure in Washington.
The reality is that the principal arena of competition today is no longer the military battlefield, it is the battlefield of narratives. The US return to negotiations after failing to achieve its political objectives through military means is, in itself, a clear indication that Washington's goals were not realized and reflects a strategic miscalculation by Trump and his team in the White House. Facing intense domestic political and media pressure, Trump is therefore attempting to portray the very same development as evidence of the success of his pressure campaign.
Perhaps the most important point in analyzing Trump's behavior is the clear distinction between his rhetoric and his actions. His rhetoric continues to rely on threats and displays of strength. His actions, however, are now defined by participation in negotiations in Geneva. In strategic analysis, actions generally speak louder than statements. Negotiations begin when other instruments have failed to achieve their intended objectives or when the cost of achieving those objectives has become excessively high.
Accordingly, Trump's recent threats should be viewed not as a sign of a confident victor, but as part of an effort to preserve a narrative of victory at a time when realities on the ground have compelled him to accept the path of negotiations. For this reason, the greater the gap between the war's original objectives and its final outcomes, the greater the need for displays of power and the construction of a narrative of victory.