Trump uses 9/11 to justify a needed liquidation of Iran
By Bram de Vries · Reporting from Amsterdam ·
On Friday, September 11, 2026, President Donald Trump stood at the Pentagon and did what any seasoned negotiator does when the leverage is high: he tied the current conflict to…
# The Ledger of Trauma and Tankers
On Friday, September 11, 2026, President Donald Trump stood at the Pentagon and tied the current conflict to the most potent emotional trigger in the American arsenal. Marking the 25th anniversary of the 2001 attacks, Trump declared, “We will never, ever forget. That is why we fight today.” He fused the legacy of 9/11 with a six-month-old war against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The rhetoric justified a preemptive strike to ensure Iran never builds a nuclear warhead, upi.com and washingtonpost.com said. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated plainly that the U.S. has already destroyed the Iranian Navy and seized the Strait of Hormuz. For someone who grew up watching crude oil flow through the Rotterdam harbor, controlling such a strait is not a matter of Pentagon scripts; it is a mercantile victory. If you control the gate, you control the price.
Trump recognized the flaws of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) before the diplomats in Vienna reached a consensus. He saw the JCPOA as a lease on peace that the tenant refused to pay. He pulled the U.S. out of the deal in 2018, recognizing that a regime viewing the global trade system as a target cannot be a bargaining partner.
The Ghost of the Iraq War
Critics argue that the U.S. has been here before. They cite the Iraq War as a warning against using a domestic tragedy to justify a strike against a regime funding proxies to prevent nuclear proliferation. The strategy repeats: leverage a national trauma to bypass State Department caution and launch a strike to stop a perceived threat.
But intelligence failed in Iraq, and the U.S. held a deluded hope of building a nation. This conflict differs because the objective is not to build a democracy in Tehran, but to liquidate the regime's ability to disrupt the market. Opponents call this "Iraq 2.0," predicting a decade of insurgency. That argument ignores the ledger. In 2003, the U.S. entered Iraq with a map and a hope. In 2026, the U.S. operates with a balance sheet.
The rial has cratered to 2.2 million per dollar, a slide of nearly 20% since the siege began, NewsCord said. This is not a "forever war" of patrolling deserts; it is financial strangulation. Steven Mnuchin warned that the U.S. will make dealing with the regime so costly that executives will risk their own capital to stay away. He speaks the only language the Islamic Republic understands: the cost of doing business. This is the logic of the 2020 Qasem Soleimani assassination—a surgical strike to remove a disruptor—scaled up to a national economy.
The administration views the Iranian state not as a sovereign entity, but as a failing corporation. By treating the regime as a bad debt to be collected, Trump applies a merchant's logic to the Middle East.
Will the Clock Run Out in November?
The timeline is the key. Trump said the war will end immediately after the November 3rd midterm elections because Iran cannot hold out. To a Brussels bureaucrat, this looks like political opportunism. To a businessman, it looks like a closing date.
The administration is not seeking a protracted occupation. Instead, it applies maximum pressure to force a surrender before the political calendar turns. The plan is simple: intensify frozen bank accounts and naval strikes in the Strait of Hormuz to break the regime's will.
The risk remains that Tehran might try to break the siege by bombing oil refineries and desalination plants. If they do, they will find that the U.S. has abandoned the cautious diplomacy of the last two decades. The era of apologizing for capitalism and its protectors has ended.
Marco Rubio said the fleet took a hit recently: one tanker sits on the seabed and four others limp toward port with scorched decks. These losses serve as the physical evidence of a closing window.
The administration uses the memory of 9/11 to seal the political flank, but the real victory will appear in the exchange rate and the shipping lanes. By treating the Iranian regime as a liability to be erased, Trump is treating the region as a marketplace. The war will end when the cost of resistance exceeds the value of the regime's survival. That is not a tragedy; it is a liquidation.