Analyst says Trump likely to 'declare victory and go home' on Iran, drawing parallels to 1979

The United States' approach toward Iran risks repeating past misjudgments, according to journalist and author Scott Anderson, who discussed the topic in an interview on France 24's Spotlight programme with host François Picard.

Anderson, a war correspondent and author of 'King of Kings: The Fall of the Shah and the Revolution That Forged Modern Iran,' argued that there is a striking parallel between the United States' handling of Iran in 1979 and its approach in 2026, suggesting a persistent pattern of Washington misreading the country and its internal dynamics.

According to Anderson, the likely outcome of the current US posture toward Iran is that President Donald Trump will 'declare victory and go home,' a phrase he used to describe what he characterised as the 'Greenland option' — an approach in which the United States claims a favourable outcome and withdraws attention from the situation without deeper, sustained engagement with the underlying issues.

Anderson's book examines the 1979 Iranian revolution and the fall of the Shah, tracing the historical roots of the fraught relationship between Washington and Tehran that has persisted for decades. His comments suggest he sees echoes of that earlier period of miscalculation in current US policy toward Iran.

The discussion comes amid continued tension between the United States and Iran, with Anderson's analysis pointing to a broader pattern in which American policymakers, in his view, have struggled to accurately assess Iranian politics and society across multiple administrations.

Anderson's remarks reflect his own analysis and interpretation as a longtime observer of the region, offered in the context of a televised interview rather than as an official US or Iranian government position.