If you looked at Ottoman maps as the empire disintegrated, you would never have guessed that anything was wrong. Territories that had been annexed or had obtained independence decades or even a century earlier were still shown in imperial pink. As the de facto borders of the empire shrunk, students continued to see the same de jure borders proudly displayed on their classroom walls.
As historian Benjamin Fortna has detailed, in the early 20th century it was still common to see Ottoman maps that included Tunisia (a French protectorate since 1881), Egypt (largely independent since 1805, occupied by Britain since 1882), Bulgaria (autonomous since 1878), Cyprus (a British protectorate since 1878), and even Somalia (which had only been Ottoman in a nominal sense to begin with).
If you looked at Ottoman maps as the empire disintegrated, you would never have guessed that anything was wrong. Territories that had been annexed or had obtained independence decades or even a century earlier were still shown in imperial pink. As the de facto borders of the empire shrunk, students continued to see the same de jure borders proudly displayed on their classroom walls.
As historian Benjamin Fortna has detailed, in the early 20th century it was still common to see Ottoman maps that included Tunisia (a French protectorate since 1881), Egypt (largely independent since 1805, occupied by Britain since 1882), Bulgaria (autonomous since 1878), Cyprus (a British protectorate since 1878), and even Somalia (which had only been Ottoman in a nominal sense to begin with).
The Ottoman state took the lead perpetuating this cartographic delusion, printing official maps and censoring ones it considered harmful. But other parts of society followed its lead. Private publishers, for example, reflected the empire’s aspirational borders, whether out of personal patriotism or a desire to get their atlases approved by the Education Ministry.
When U.S. President Donald Trump announced his memorandum of understanding with Iran last week, Americans could be forgiven for feeling as if they had stumbled into the same world of deluded grandeur. The terms were at once vague and capitulatory, deferring all the important topics to future negotiations while still offering hints that they would not be resolved favorably to Washington. But as everyone struggled to sort out what had actually been agreed to, Trump declared on social media that Iran had been “completely defeated militarily,” adding: “AMERICA IS BACK!!!”
Readers will all undoubtedly have their own favorite example of historical farcepolitik. The Holy Roman Empire did not formally come to an end until 1806. British monarchs only dropped the title “King of France” in 1801, three and half centuries after losing any claim to it in the Hundred Years’ War. Taiwan maintained a Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission until 2017. More modestly, Egypt continued calling itself the United Arab Republic for a mere decade after Syria withdrew, when Egypt was only united with itself.
Thankfully, U.S politics have not yet become this surreal. Trump’s claims of victory received forceful pushback from commentators and political figures alike, while events on the ground suggested that even his claims to have ended the war contained a fair bit of delusion.
Still, it is too soon to conclude that Trump’s farcepolitik won’t ultimately carry the day. If nothing else, the past year has put the U.S. capacity for collective denial on full display. Trump has certainly taken the lead in forging a false sense of reality. Yet, as in the case of Ottoman maps, his efforts have only succeeded with the buy-in of others. This includes many commentators who, out of their own patriotism or opportunism, aren’t quite willing to publicly puncture the narrative of success and normalcy.
Consider Trump’s Gaza deal, which appeared to be the template for his Iran cease-fire. Amid the elaborate fanfare over Trump’s Board of Peace, the deal itself never progressed to Phase II, and the initial cease-fire terms simply hardened into a new status quo. Hamas never disarmed, Israel never withdrew, and the Board of Peace never did anything at all.
Yet instead of fully reflecting this, many in Washington remained upbeat. In January, former Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross optimistically suggested, “There is a possibility now that we can really create an alternative to Hamas,” while the Washington Institute’s Robert Satloff declared, “For the first time in a long while, there are some bright lights in Gaza.” Five months later, Hamas is still running Gaza, and residents are struggling to keep lights on without the basic electricity infrastructure they were promised in Trump’s deal.
For another example of Washington holding reality at bay, consider some of the recent commentary on NATO. Early this year, the Danish government was sufficiently worried about a U.S. invasion of Greenland that it deployed additional military forces to the island, sent blood supplies for wounded soldiers, and prepared to blow up airfields in advance of an attack.
In the language of think tank reports, however, this simply reflects “alliance frictions,” suggesting that “NATO is under strain—but not yet in crisis.” Another recent commentary piece laments the “fit of fatalism” over NATO, arguing that there is nothing new about the alliance’s latest “spat.” While Trump has “challenged the transatlantic status quo,” NATO has “weathered more than a dozen severe episodes of disagreement” before.
The real delusion here is not in Trump’s views, however dangerous they may be. Rather, it is in the minds of a commentariat that refuses to engage with what Trump’s views actually mean. It’s not that NATO is necessarily dead or even doomed to remain a zombie alliance. But when the president is threatening to invade the territory of another NATO member, the U.S. commitment to Article 5 must be recognized as a fiction on par with Ottoman control of Egypt in 1907.
Indeed, well into Trump’s second term, there are still plenty of pieces proposing nuanced, totally-out-of-character polices that Trump could pursue if he were actually serious about any of his stated goals: “If Trump is serious about ending the war in Ukraine, his administration should work with … [Russia] hawks on Capitol Hill rather than oppose them.” “If Washington wants to really repair the relationship” with India, “it can begin by finally concluding a trade deal that lowers the massive U.S. tariffs.” “If the United States is serious about besting the [Chinese Communist Party] … it needs to invest in its manufacturing capacity, spend on its people, shore up its partnerships, and reinvest in its values.” And of course, “If Trump wants the cease-fire he has achieved in Gaza not only to endure but to also evolve into something more durable, he will have to apply sustained leverage—on Hamas, on Israel, and on the regional states that have influence.”
No doubt. But of course, Trump isn’t serious about any of these goals, and he won’t do any of these things. If he did, he wouldn’t be Trump.
There has been plenty of eloquent criticism about the media’s propensity for sanewashing the president. But it doesn’t quite capture the extent to which this form of coping is a participatory phenomenon.
Analysts arguing that if Trump were really serious about Arctic security, he would cooperate with Denmark—or suggesting that to succeed in negotiating the next phase of the Iran deal, he should draw lessons from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—aren’t delusional. More often than not, they are simply trying to engage as constructively as possible in clearly adverse circumstances. Yet to engage with a government committed to its own reality, you have to make your own accommodations. The result is an ecosystem where Trump’s most committed enablers declare victory after victory and a number of people who know better, or at least should, decline to call it a defeat.
On Monday, a New York Times headline read: “Vance Points to Progress After First Round of U.S.-Iran Talks.” Will anyone buy it? Looking back decades later on his experience in the Ottoman educational system, one prominent Turkish writer lamented that “we fooled ourselves.” Another, however, reflected that even on the empire’s doctored maps, the scale of its losses proved inescapable.
