It began with missiles, and after nearly two weeks of escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, marked by intense airstrikes, and global anxiety over the possibility of wider war, it all ended with a tweet! President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire. Not from the White House podium, nor in coordination with his national security team, but through his personal social media megaphone – “PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!” 

Truth Social And Delicate Ceasefire

The announcement came not from the warring nations but from the man who had just ordered U.S. military strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites only days earlier. Trump’s declaration, posted minutes after 6 p.m. Eastern Time, caught much of the world (and reportedly, his own administration) off guard. Israel, for its part, confirmed the ceasefire hours after Trump’s post, and Iran acknowledged the deal even before that. But curiously, within just three hours of the announcement, new Israeli strikes reportedly targeted Iranian assets again. Was this peace, or just a pause in fire under pressure?

According to senior White House sources, the ceasefire emerged after behind-the-scenes efforts involving Trump’s inner circle – Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and special envoy Steve Witkoff – who had been negotiating quietly with Iranian intermediaries and Qatari officials. The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, played a central mediating role, according to one official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

But while the diplomacy might have been real, the sequence of events painted a different picture.

Trump had just authorized a bold and risky operation: U.S. jets striking deep into Iranian territory, hitting nuclear enrichment facilities in a high-stakes show of force. The military action was intended to both aid Israel and send a message to Tehran. Iran’s response – a missile strike on Al Udeid air base in Qatar, America’s largest military installation in the region, was swift, calibrated, and far from symbolic.

And then, just like that, came the pivot.

From orchestrator of airstrikes to self-proclaimed architect of peace, Trump’s sudden call for calm appeared more performative than planned while his declaration seems more like a command from someone who sees himself not just as U.S. president – but as the world’s!

The War Room in Trump’s Palm
War, as the world once knew it, used to unfold behind closed doors. Generals strategized in high-security bunkers. Intelligence flowed in shadows. Diplomats whispered across cold tables in neutral capitals. But in Trump’s America, war(s) pause with a post.

As the world held its breath over escalating tensions in the Middle East, President Trump seemed less concerned with military precision than with narrative control. And where better to curate that buildup than on Truth Social?

“Iran has officially responded to our Obliteration of their Nuclear Facilities with a very weak response,” Trump declared at 3:52 p.m.. Graciously, he added thanks to Iran for giving advance warning – an online pat on the back for civilised warmongering. Diplomacy, apparently, now comes with a retweet.

But it didn’t end there. Two hours later, Trump returned—this time not with escalation, but with revelation: a “Complete and Total CEASEFIRE.” ……No details, no confirmations, just one man’s words… that wars can be declared over if he says so first.

Historians may someday marvel at this chapter in presidential behavior. After all, Trump had spent the previous 48 hours live-commentating on a live-fire exchange. He’d declared targets obliterated. Scolded detractors. Floated regime change like a campaign slogan – “MIGA!!!” – as though Iran is not a country but a corporate that needs a new CEO.

And through it all, the line between military leadership and meme-making blurred. He assured followers that Fordo (the critical Iranian nuclear plant) was “gone,” despite more cautious assessments from actual military experts. He warned oil prices to behave, suggested the Energy Department do something it legally can’t, and told the American public to keep calm.

“CONGRATULATIONS WORLD,” he signed off at 4:02 p.m., “IT’S TIME FOR PEACE!”

A war ordered by one tweet. Paused by another!

The Force, and the Fantasy, of Airpower

Now let us focus on military might – in the age of drone swarms and precision strikes, it’s tempting to believe that airpower can do it all – cripple regimes, neutralize threats, and neatly tuck geopolitical messes back into their boxes without a single boot on the ground.

The recent strikes on Iran seem to suggest as much. After all, in just under two weeks, a combined U.S.-Israeli air campaign reportedly dismantled critical infrastructure, rattled Iran’s leadership circle, and backed Tehran into a corner deep enough for a ceasefire – at least according to one man’s Truth Social feed.

Compare that to the trench-stalemate feel of Russia and Ukraine, where air superiority remains a question and UAVs carry more operational weight than fighter jets. There, traditional airpower has been grounded (literally and figuratively) but in Iran, airpower soared. Why?

Part of the answer lies in retired U.S. Air Force Colonel John Warden’s “Five Rings” theory – a doctrine that urges strikes not just on armies, but on the very organs of a state’s existence: leadership, infrastructure, essentials, and the will to govern. In Ukraine, these inner rings remain stubbornly out of reach. In Iran, they were, at least for a weekend, seemingly within arm’s length.

The joint U.S.-Israeli strikes cut deep, not only into facilities but into the belief that Iran’s security architecture could deter a Western assault. Stealth bombers sliced through airspace that should have been bristling with defenses. Drones hovered like hawks, watching, waiting, striking. Command centers, enrichment sites, and personnel hubs were hit with the kind of surgical violence that sends shockwaves through a regime’s spine.

But precision is not persuasion.

Despite the damage inflicted, there’s little to suggest that Tehran has been fundamentally altered.

Let us be real, regimes don’t fold because their police stations take a hit; history teaches us that air campaigns alone rarely bend the arc of power, much less break it.

Still, the technical prowess on display was undeniable. The American and Israeli militaries operated with a freedom and lethality that Russia could only envy. Iranian defenses, while not primitive, proved vulnerable, undermined by electronic warfare, overwhelmed by stealth, and outpaced by organization, hardware superiority,  forged in decades of simulations and joint drills that Russia’s Cold War-era tactics simply haven’t kept pace with.

Finally, Can Iran, Israel, and the U.S. Now All Claim to Have Won?
The posturing after the so-called “12-Day War” is telling; each actor – Iran, Israel, and the United States – now stands at a podium of their own making, declaring victory to their domestic audiences. The truth, however, is murkier, tangled somewhere between detonation and declaration, drone footage and digital bravado.

Iran, for its part, absorbed a direct hit to its nuclear program. Three key enrichment sites were targeted. Yet the Islamic Republic responded in a manner that, while not negligible, was tightly choreographed, a missile strike on the Al Udeid airbase that signaled strength without inviting further escalation.

Iran’s messaging machine has already begun spinning it as a demonstration of restraint under fire. In Tehran’s head, the regime faced down two military giants, survived, and held its ground. In the calculus of regional politics, sometimes not losing is a win.

Israel, meanwhile, sees justification. It can point to a military campaign that struck deep into enemy territory, with minimal domestic cost. It rattled Iran, forced a response, and then, at least publicly, paused with a ceasefire that it didn’t broker, but benefited from. For Netanyahu, who has long portrayed Iran as an existential threat, the operation reaffirms deterrence, even if it risks being temporary. In Tel Aviv, military success is not just measured by destruction, but by shaping the threat matrix. And if that matrix now tilts slightly in Israel’s favor, the mission was a success.

And then there is the United States, or more precisely, Donald Trump. The man who turned a strike order into a Twitter thread, and a war room into a live broadcast feed. Trump not only initiated military action, he also narrated its arc, resolution, and epilogue. In his telling, the U.S. obliterated Iranian facilities, endured a feeble response, and then heroically pulled the world back from the brink with a ceasefire, one he announced before either party confirmed it.

But behind the self-congratulatory caps-lock posts lies a more complicated legacy. The strikes revealed the overwhelming might of U.S. airpower. But they also exposed its limitations. Iran is still standing. Its regime remains intact. Its nuclear ambitions, though wounded, likely not erased. Trump may have declared peace, but peace is not a presidential proclamation—it is a process. And this one hasn’t started.

So, can they all claim victory? Sure—in the age of social media warfare, everyone can.

But can they all justify it?

Iran survives but at a cost. Israel flexes but risks overreach. And the U.S., or rather Trump, declares triumph without a treaty, without a plan, and without a clear endgame.

The “win” for each lies not in results, but in reframing reality: –

For Iran, it’s defiance.

For Israel, it’s deterrence.

For Trump, it’s dominance, staged and streamed in real time.