Summary: President Trump demanded Iran's "unconditional surrender" in the ongoing conflict, invoking a historically significant phrase. The article notes this term's origins with Ulysses S. Grant in the Civil War and its later use by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in World War II, highlighting debates over its strategic implications. Experts and the White House's response are cited to discuss the potential risks and meaning of such an absolute demand in modern warfare.
Main Topics Covered:
1. President Trump's demand for Iran's "unconditional surrender."
2. The historical use and meaning of the phrase by Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War.
3. The phrase's adaptation by Allied leaders in World War II.
4. Analysis and questions regarding the strategy and pragmatism of such an ultimatum in the current Iran conflict.
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Trump Echoes F.D.R. and Grant in Calling for ‘Unconditional Surrender’
President Trump demanded that Iran capitulate in the war with the United States, invoking a phrase made famous by statesmen and generals.
The two-word ultimatum, delivered to the Confederate brass during the Civil War, cemented a nom de guerre for Ulysses S. Grant, the Union general and future president: Unconditional Surrender Grant.
As the Allies contemplated an endgame in World War II, the same phrase, adopted by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, garnered headlines.
And as the United States enters its second week of war against Iran, President Trump invoked on Friday what has become a familiar demand in militaristic vernacular, one steeped in a nonnegotiable bravado.
“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The president’s choice of words recalled long-ago wars and the posturing of statesmen and generals, prompting questions about how Mr. Trump defined “unconditional surrender” and the pragmatism of an all-or-nothing approach.
“The risk is you prolong the conflict,” said Bill Allison, a professor of history at Georgia Southern University whose research has focused on American military history. “You hope that there was some sort of discussion in the room of how this has played out in the past and pros and cons to it.”
When asked by a reporter on Friday what Mr. Trump meant by calling for unconditional surrender, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that would be achieved when Iran no longer posed a threat to the United States and the goals of the military mission had been carried out.
From the Civil War battlefield to modern-day hostilities in the Middle East, the phrase has been recycled.
The Civil War: Grant bristles at a surrender deal
The year was 1862, and a nation divided was at war.
Fort Donelson, a key Civil War stronghold for the Confederacy on the Cumberland River in Tennessee, came under heavy attack from Union soldiers.
The Union offensive overwhelmed the Confederates, who, recognizing they had no path to victory, began exploring an exit strategy. One of their officers was sent through enemy lines with a white flag and a dispatch, suggesting that the two sides negotiate the terms of a Confederate surrender, according to the American Battlefield Trust.
Ulysses S. Grant, who was commanding the Union troops, dismissed it outright.
“No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted,” Grant responded.
According to the trust, Grant’s terse message echoed two of his lieutenants who were involved in the battles at Fort Donelson and Fort Henry, which was also in Tennessee, but his legacy would be permanently intertwined with the phrase “unconditional surrender.”
Grant was promoted to major general and was elected president in 1868.
World War II: The Allies hold the cards
As the Allies were waging war against the Axis powers, Roosevelt and Churchill, the British prime minister, met in Casablanca, Morocco, in 1943 to discuss what a pathway to victory might look like.
What emerged from their talks would be a familiar strategy, but one with a meaning very different from the Civil War era, said John Fabian Witt, a professor of history at Yale University and the author of the book “Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History.”
“It’s the same term, but it has come to mean two different things,” Dr. Witt said. “When Grant says it right at Fort Donelson, he means your guys have to give up their weapons and become prisoners of war. Come 1943, it means something radically different.”
For Germany and Japan, he said, that meant the Allies would dictate how the two Axis powers would be rebuilt. It also stipulated that their leaders would be prosecuted for war crimes, he said.
“Surrender means that these two societies can be reorganized by the victors, and that the leaders of these societies, who have committed the crime of aggressive warfare, are now susceptible to prosecution and being strung up,” Dr. Witt said.
In 1945, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the commander of the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force, issued a similar ultimatum when Germany proposed surrendering only its forces facing the western Allies, according to the Truman Library Institute.
And at the Potsdam Conference, which also took place in 1945, the United States, Britain and China called for Japan’s unconditional surrender.
Neil Vigdor covers breaking news for The Times, with a focus on politics.
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