Trump Declares ‘Total Victory’ After Iran Truce, Aides Say It’s Premature

President Donald Trump has declared "total victory" after agreeing to a two-week truce with Iran, but some aides worry that assessment is premature, the Wall Street Journal reported on Aug. 8.

The Journal said Trump was recently briefed on Iran’s remaining military capabilities and on factors that could threaten the ceasefire after the temporary halt in fighting.

Officials told the newspaper that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps still has dozens of small boats that can threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

More than half of Iran’s missile launchers have been destroyed, but many of the remaining systems are still buried underground, the report said.

That means Iran still retains the military capability to control the Strait of Hormuz even after US and Israeli airstrikes.

Some Trump allies believe Iran is unlikely to reopen the waterway unless the US makes substantial concessions first.

Trump, for his part, appears unwilling to accept Iran’s demands. The impasse could eventually lead to renewed fighting.

Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a Trump ally, told the Journal it would take four to six weeks to determine whether "we were simply lying to ourselves because we lost our nerve, or whether we got a real agreement that is effective and produces meaningful change."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican close to Trump, wrote on social media that the US must take control of all of Iran’s highly enriched uranium and remove it from the country.

The Trump administration, however, has continued to frame the truce as a "total victory." White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said Iran’s ballistic missiles and production facilities had been destroyed, its navy had been sunk, its proxy forces had been weakened and its ambitions to obtain nuclear weapons had vanished, according to the Journal.

Separate reporting said the Trump administration also applied overt pressure on the Catholic Church after it criticized the war with Iran.

The Free Press reported that Elbridge Colby, the US under secretary of defense for policy, recently summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s ambassador to the US, to the Pentagon and sharply rebuked him after Pope Leo XIV criticized the Iran war in a speech.

At the meeting, Colby said the US had the military power to do whatever it wanted and warned that "the Church would do well to stand with the United States," the outlet said.

A person who attended the meeting said the Avignon Papacy was also mentioned. The term refers to the 14th-century episode in which the French monarchy forced the papacy to move from Rome to Avignon after subduing Pope Boniface VIII.

Ko Jeong-sam, Hankyung.com reporter, jsk@hankyung.com