Last week, when Trump declared the Iran-Israel conflict “over”, markets exhaled— and yeah, the numbers tell the story:
When measured from peak escalation (on June 20th) to the ceasefire (on June 24th)
✅ Oil prices dropped 12%
✅ VIX collapsed 15%
✅ S&P 500 surged 2%
Here is perhaps why Wall Street reacted like it dodged a bullet:
When Trump declared the conflict “over,” something was conspicuously absent from his remarks — regime change.
This was no oversight.
It was a quiet admission of what the US foreign policy establishment refuses to acknowledge: the US is terrible at regime change.
Trump may have done something no US president has managed in decades: learnt from history!
The US track record on regime changes — I have kept this anchored to the Middle East despite the tug within me to include the US’ misadventures in Chile and East Pakistan — reads like a tragedy:
1953 Iran:
The US deposed the democratically elected Mossadegh to “save” Iran, only to tip power to the Shah, which eventually led to the creation of the present-day Islamic Republic that haunts it to this day
2003 Iraq:
The US toppled Saddam to bring democracy, and birthed the ISIS instead
2011 Libya:
The US removed Gaddafi for “humanitarian” reasons and left a country whose borders are super-porous.
The pattern was undeniable.
The US just could not seem to quit its regime-change addiction — even when the strategy had failed every single time.
You remember how the Bush-Blair combine was nicknamed Batman and Robin (during the WMD fiasco in Iraq)?
Well, consider the irony then.
Just months before the Iran crisis, the US regime change addiction played out in UK of all places, when Musk openly called for the fall of the Starmer government.
That’s Batman taking out Robin, the greatest plot twist ever! (Only rivalled by JD Vance’s tweet from a couple of years ago when he called for the US to self-practice regime change. See pic)
What made all those botched attempts at regime-changes galling was the US refusal to learn from and engage nations that actually understand this terrain.
While America grandstands, countries like Oman have over the decades quietly mediated deals, consistently dousing the little fires before they turn into raging infernos.
They succeed where the US fails because they possess what Washington lacks:
✅ Equanimity (no need to be the hero of every story)
✅ Cultural fluency (understanding that not every society wants to be remade in America’s image)
✅ Strategic patience (measuring progress in decades, not news cycles)
Trump’s omission was not an oversight — it was a rare moment of strategic clarity; and an acceptance that the US does not understand the cultural nuances of civilizations that are thousands of years older than itself.
In an era where geopolitical shocks move markets faster than earnings reports, sometimes the most profitable words are the ones left unsaid.
