By Walt Zlotow
America is famous for declaring its foes capitulate to unconditional surrender.
It was first uttered in 1862 by Ulysses S. Grant who demanded the “unconditional and immediate surrender” of Confederate forces at Fort Donelson, Tennessee. U.S. Grant forever became known as ‘Unconditional Surrender Grant.’
US war presidents loved unconditional surrender. FDR employed it on Germany before he died and it worked well. Didn’t go so easily for Truman on Japan. Burning down Toyko on March 10 with Napalm, killing a hundred thousand innocents didn’t. A bombing Hiroshima August 6 didn’t. Even the second A bomb on Nagasaki did not definitively make Japan bow to the US demand. Most likely it was the million man Russian invasion the day before the Nagasaki bomb that convinced Japan to surrender unconditionally.
Unconditional surrender lay dormant for the next 81 years. It was AWOL thru Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan as the US failed to achieve anything close to an unconditional surrender from opponents that stymied, even defeated the vaunted world’s strongest military.
But on March 6, President Trump, unaware he’d already lost his delusional war to bring down the Iranian regime at the behest of Israel, declared Iran must submit to “Unconditional Surrender.”
As well as the March 6 Truth Social post (above) a week into his lost war demanding “unconditional surrender” from Tehran, he trotted out his clueless Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to describe what would constitute unconditional surrender:
“What the president means is that when he, as commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender.”
One hundred sixty-three days into his lost war, President Trump finds America facing unconditional surrender. Unless he capitulates on all of Iran’s reasonable and non-negotiable terms, Iran will not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, placing the world’s economy in jeopardy of collapse.
What are those reasonable terms of surrender?
- End all military action against Iran including bombing and blockade
Promise never again to attack Iran
End all economic sanctions on Iran
Return all frozen Iranian assets
Provide reparations for damage inflicted in Trump’s illegal criminal war launched February 28.
Of course, facing unconditional surrender does not mean Trump will surrender unconditionally to Iran’s reasonable demands. He may simply adhere to the counsel of his former evil mentor Roy Cohn… ‘Never give up, never give in’ and mutter “After me, the deluge.”
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL
Also by Walt
After 157 days of Iran war failure, Trump must quit the war or quit the presidency
Trump must leave office to end Iran war, reopen Hormuz Strait, save world economy
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Mrs Lievitt, one would expect that a press secretary would, at the least, have a grasp of basic grammar: ” … the goals of Operation Epic Fury have been fully realized … “