Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did her job as best she could.

This is a victory for the United States that President Trump and our incredible military made happen.

From the very beginning of Operation Epic Fury, President Trump estimated this would be a 4-6 week operation.

Thanks to the unbelievable capabilities of our warriors, we have…

— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) April 8, 2026

Trump threatened that “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” which was variously viewed as Trump being particularly macho or Trump being particularly demented. As it turned out, Iran didn’t “die,” as Trump announced that he would accept Pakistan’s plan for a two-week ceasefire because Iran’s 10-point plan, summarily rejected the day before, was suddenly worthy of discussion.

Ten hours and 26 minutes later, at 6:32 p.m. Eastern time, he lifted the threat, for now. He said an intervention by the Pakistani government had led to a two-week cease-fire in a war that has wracked the world economy and showed off American technological dominance and unexpected Iranian resilience.

Mr. Trump’s tactic of escalating his rhetoric to astronomical levels certainly helped him find an offramp he had been seeking for weeks. That success alone may fuel his belief that the tactics he learned in the New York real estate world — ignore old conventions, make maximalist demands — works in geopolitics as well.

So victory it is? Not so fast.

Without question, it was a down-to-the-wire tactical victory, one that should, at least temporarily, get oil, fertilizer and helium flowing again through the Strait of Hormuz, and calm markets that feared a global energy shock would lead to a global recession.

But it resolved none of the fundamental issues that led to the war.

It leaves a theocratic government, backed by the vicious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in charge of a cowed population that has been pummeled by missiles and bombs, and finds itself still under the thumb of a familiar regime, even if under new management. It leaves Iran’s nuclear stockpile in place, including the 970 pounds of near-bomb-grade material that was, in theory, the casus belli of this war.

It left Gulf allies reeling, with the discovery that the glass skyscrapers of Dubai and the desalination plants that make wealthy enclaves in Kuwait livable can be taken out by Iranian missiles and drones. Gas prices have soared, and are about to test Mr. Trump’s promise that they will fall again to old levels as soon as the fighting stops.

And Iran says it will, at least for the next two weeks, open the Strait of Hormuz, just like it was before Trump dropped the bombs, except now with the unmistakable recognition that Iran can squeeze its sphincter at any moment.

On that point there was an ominous-sounding element buried in the Iranian description of the deal. Shipping would proceed, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, wrote, but under the control of “Iran’s Armed Forces,” who would determine who passes, and when.

“Iran remains in the control of the Strait, which was not the case before the war,” said Richard Fontaine, the chief executive of the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank. “I find it hard to believe that the United States and the world could accept a situation in which Iran remains in control of a key energy checkpoint indefinitely. That would be a materially worse outcome than existed before the war.”

In a sense, this outcome, or offramp assuming that it’s not over yet and Trump decides that he needs to salvage his lost ego consumed in the fire of a burning F-15, might well be far better than pursuing a war without cognizable strategic goals. It’s not that there aren’t a great many reasons to take action against Iran, but what that action is, how it’s to be done, and what purpose it’s intended to serve, were the sort of deliberate things one considers thoroughly and thoughtfully before dropping the bomb.

Or can we pretend that a twit by Leavitt and more incoherent bluffery by the president constitutes a substitute for “Mission Accomplished” at the expense of the lives of 13 American troops, hundreds of American wounded, the loss of numerous jets and helicopters and a Strait of Hormuz in the hands of the new Ayatollah and the IRGC? Plus they still have the enriched Uranium that Trump still insists was “obliterated” last June and the capacity to wreak havoc on the glass towers of its neighbors in the middle east and their ships.

But all of this ignores perhaps the most important part of this fiasco, that the Iranian people who sought freedom and were murdered in the street by the radical regime have gained nothing from this exercise.

There will be no help. There never would.