Much has already been written about Donald Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine, Europe and NATO. But nowhere has his reversal been more striking than in the Middle East. Not only Israel now finds itself abandoned, but America’s Gulf allies increasingly feel the same disillusionment.
Only weeks ago, I praised Trump for seemingly rejecting the old Arabist orthodoxy that blamed Israel for every Middle Eastern problem and treated access to Gulf oil as the overriding objective of American diplomacy. Yet today, he appears to have embraced many of the same assumptions he once condemned.
The most glaring example came when Trump reportedly blocked Israeli plans to strike Hezbollah’s Beirut stronghold out of concern that doing so might jeopardize negotiations with Iran. The irony is staggering.
One central justification for confronting Iran was to dismantle its network of terrorist proxies. Yet Trump effectively shielded Hezbollah—the crown jewel of that network—to placate the regime responsible for sustaining it. What began as a campaign against Iranian aggression has devolved into accommodating Iranian demands.
The shift has become so pronounced that even prominent pro-Israel conservatives are sounding the alarm. JNS senior contributor Melanie Phillips captured the mounting unease, headlining a June 4 opinion piece, “President Trump: A Second Obama?”
Israel has made no secret of its desire to finish what it started in Iran. Trump, however, has opposed further offensive action. Reports now suggest that he will not authorize renewed military operations unless Iran directly kills American troops.
Meanwhile, Tehran continues to harass shipping, threaten Gulf states and violate the ceasefire. The administration’s response has consisted largely of warnings, rhetoric and endless promises that a breakthrough deal is just around the corner.
The eventual agreement, if one emerges at all, is expected to differ only marginally from the nuclear deal Trump denounced as a historic disaster. Having torn up the Obama-era framework in 2018, he now appears prepared to recreate it and declare victory.
In practice, Trump has validated one of the Arabists’ core assumptions: that sufficient American pressure can force Israel to subordinate its security concerns to U.S. diplomatic objectives. At the same time, he has discovered that geopolitical realities are less forgiving than campaign slogans. Despite his promises of American energy supremacy, rising oil prices have constrained his options and exposed the consequences of failing to secure the Strait of Hormuz at the outset of the conflict.
Nor were these the only missed opportunities. Elements of the original strategy, such as more aggressively empowering Kurdish forces or crippling Iran’s electric grid early in the campaign, were abandoned or inadequately pursued. Measures that might have intensified pressure on the regime and improved the prospects for significant change were left unrealized.
Speaking of the Kurds, they, too, were betrayed by Trump—not once, but twice. After Kurdish-led forces sacrificed thousands of fighters alongside the United States in the war against ISIS, Trump withdrew U.S. troops from northern Syria, paving the way for a Turkish offensive against them.
At the outset of the Iran war, Kurdish groups were again viewed as a potentially valuable ally that could force Tehran to divert forces and possibly fuel internal unrest. Yet despite Trump’s outreach to Kurdish leaders and reports that a Kurdish offensive was imminent, he ultimately ruled out their participation, reportedly after Turkish objections. The result was that the Kurds stayed home but still suffered retaliation from Iran.
The president has discovered that geopolitical realities are less forgiving than campaign slogans.
Today, Trump appears content to preserve the very regime whose dangers were cited to justify military action. He now speaks openly of meeting Iran’s new supreme leader, a striking evolution from the rhetoric that launched the war and the decision he approved to assassinate his father. The Gulf states also feel betrayed, as Trump has shown no sympathy for their vulnerability to Iranian attacks, which have continued since the ceasefire, a recent attack on the Kuwaiti commercial airport just one example.
When Trump reversed his plan to escort commercial ships, “Project Freedom,” just 48 hours after announcing it, NBC reported that it was because Saudi Arabia wouldn’t allow the United States to use its airspace to support the operation.
According to Arab analyst Aimen Dean, the underlying reason that America’s allies no longer trust Trump’s commitments: “You cannot say: ‘Please open your skies and bases, expose your energy infrastructure’ … only for everyone to discover afterwards that the actual American policy was apparently: ‘Oh, by the way, if Iran attacks you with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in several waves, we still won’t retaliate because Donald Trump is busy chasing The Deal.’”
That skepticism is rooted in experience. Gulf governments expected American retaliation when their critical infrastructure was attacked. Instead, as Dean put it, “Washington’s response was basically: ‘Meh. Minor incident. Let’s not escalate.’”
Given that reality, Dean says, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait saw little reason to support “Project Freedom” when they realized they “were apparently expected to sit there quietly as punching bags while Washington played negotiation theatrics with Tehran.”
Saudi analyst Mubarak al-Ati draws an even harsher conclusion. Across the Gulf, he argues, there is a growing belief that American power is in decline and that Trump’s threats carry little weight. His calls for expanded participation in the 2020 Abraham Accords are viewed skeptically because regional leaders doubt the United States will stand behind them if Iran retaliates. In al-Ati’s words, Trump has become “a paper tiger.”
Perhaps the most important observation comes from Dean’s broader assessment of Iranian strategy. Western policymakers—and Trump, in particular—approach diplomacy according to timelines measured in news cycles, election cycles and quarterly reports. Iran thinks in decades.
“Iran plays the long game,” Dean notes. “You can freeze enrichment. Pause enrichment. Delay enrichment. Sign 10 agreements, 20 agreements, 40 agreements. But if the infrastructure remains, if the centrifuges remain, if the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] remains, if the proxy network remains, eventually the game resumes.”
That is the central flaw in Trump’s approach. He appears increasingly focused on achieving a deal rather than resolving the underlying threat. Yet a temporary pause is not victory. A ceasefire is not a transformation. An agreement that leaves intact the machinery of Iranian power merely postpones the next confrontation.
In seeking a diplomatic triumph, Trump risks squandering the strategic gains already achieved. Allies who once welcomed his leadership increasingly question his resolve. Adversaries who feared American power are learning that persistence may be enough. The result is a growing perception that the United States is abandoning its partners and its own stated objectives.
For a president who vowed strength, the most permanent legacy of this conflict may be the perception of retreat.
