# Tom Nichols — "Iran, Not Trump, Is in Control of This War" > [!quote] "Iran, Not Trump, Is in Control of This War." > — Tom Nichols, *The Atlantic*, July 8, 2026 ## Context As the U.S. resumed strikes on Iran and [[Donald Trump]] claimed at the [[NATO Summit Ankara 2026]] that "we have the Hormuz Strait" and oil would flow freely, national-security scholar and *Atlantic* writer [[Tom Nichols]] argued the opposite: the Iranians were "calling the shots in the war" and "routinely humiliating the American president." He characterized the so-called ceasefire as a device to calm oil markets that neither side had ever honored. ## Why This Matters Nichols is a conservative, credentialed national-security voice rather than a partisan opponent, which sharpens his verdict that the U.S. had lost control of the escalation it launched. The line extends his earlier framing of the [[Trump-Iran MOU 2026]] as "the war Trump did not understand he lost" — see [[Tom Nichols - weirdest and most astonishing day in US foreign policy]]. ## See Also - [[NATO Summit Ankara 2026]] - [[Iran War 2026]] - [[Strait of Hormuz]] - [[Tom Nichols - weirdest and most astonishing day in US foreign policy]]