In the volatile geopolitical landscape of the Middle East centered on Iran, there is an old, unwritten rule: if you have to publicly explain that you have achieved victory, you have already suffered a quiet defeat. That unforgiving standard now applies to President Donald Trump’s stunning last-minute reversal: just one day after launching Operation Freedom, a U.S. Navy escort initiative for commercial cargo transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the president announced he was putting the mission on hold. The sudden policy shift has left observers baffled, as has Trump’s claim that a breakthrough peace deal with Tehran’s ruling regime is within close reach.
It is worth noting that fixating on the president’s frequent policy shifts can quickly become disorienting. No external observer has access to the full scope of classified intelligence that Trump reviews daily; only the president himself knows his ultimate strategic objectives and the path he intends to take to reach them. That said, retired U.S. Marine Colonel Grant Newsham, author of *When China Attacks: A Warning to America*, draws a parallel between this moment and several landmark missteps in recent U.S. foreign policy history—ones that have echoed through global security for decades.
Newsham compares the early halt to the Hormuz mission to 1991, when President George H.W. Bush ended the first Gulf War just 72 hours too soon, leaving Saddam Hussein’s regime intact and setting the stage for decades of conflict and a second U.S. invasion a dozen years later. The same ominous feeling arose in 2001, when President George W. Bush allowed Osama bin Laden to escape the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan rather than closing the net and eliminating the al-Qaeda leader. A similar missed opportunity played out in the 1990s, when the U.S. had a clear opening to halt the Kim family regime’s nuclear weapons program in North Korea, but President Bill Clinton declined to act—with backing from former President Jimmy Carter, who infamously declared Kim Il Sung “a good man we can do business with.”
More recently, Newsham points to missteps during Trump’s first term that fit the same pattern. When Chinese telecommunications giants Huawei and ZTE—widely accused of functioning as arms of Beijing’s intelligence apparatus—were on the brink of collapse from U.S. sanctions, Trump stepped in to relieve pressure and allow the firms to rebuild. The same goes for TikTok, the popular short-video app repeatedly flagged as a continuous Chinese intelligence collection and influence operation, which the first Trump administration ultimately failed to ban or force a sale of.
Across these cases, Newsham argues, American leaders have lost the ability to follow through on defeating adversaries, instead choosing to redefine “victory” to match incomplete, half-finished policy outcomes.
A particularly troubling element of the current shift, Newsham notes, is the Trump administration’s reported willingness to allow Pakistan to mediate any future deal with Iran. Pakistan, he argues, has long been firmly aligned with Beijing, taking strategic direction from China on key regional issues. This dynamic is analogous to the Biden administration relying on Russia to mediate U.S.-Iran talks—a move that ignores basic geopolitical realities: it is critical to correctly identify which nations are genuine allies and which are not.
Pakistan has a long track record of double-dealing that undermines U.S. interests, from its duplicitous behavior throughout the 20-year U.S. campaign in Afghanistan to its decade-long hosting of Osama bin Laden after his 2001 escape. Islamabad has also waged a sustained terror campaign against India for years, a campaign that rivals the destructive activities of Iran’s Quds Force. Newsham questions why a nation with this track record would be trusted to mediate a deal critical to U.S. national security.
To be fair, Newsham acknowledges that the president has access to intelligence that outside commentators do not, and there could be sound justifications for pausing Operation Freedom. Perhaps the U.S. is facing a shortage of interceptor missiles, and leaders fear Iranian strikes on critical desalination plants operated by Gulf Cooperation Council nations. Maybe the United Arab Emirates, which has already suffered Iranian attacks on its oil infrastructure, intervened to request a hold on military escalation.
Even so, the sudden about-face defies explanation: less than 12 hours before the pause, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Michael Cain publicly announced plans for a multi-layered defense “Red, White and Blue Dome” to protect shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. That proposal was abruptly pulled off the table within a single day.
Another possible explanation is that Trump believes he can reach a favorable deal with self-identified “moderates” within the Iranian regime. But Newsham pushes back on this: nearly 50 years of dealing with the Islamic Republic should have taught U.S. leaders that genuine moderates do not hold power in Tehran—most Iranians who favor liberalization live in exile abroad. The ruling regime that just brutally suppressed domestic unrest, killing an estimated 40,000 protestors, has not changed its core ideological or strategic goals.
Geopolitical windows of opportunity do not stay open forever, Newsham warns, and this moment to neutralize Iran’s nuclear and regional threat may be closing—closing at the hands of the U.S. itself. Even if a deal is reached, Tehran has a long track record of breaking its international commitments. The regime will almost certainly rebuild its military capabilities, continue its push for a nuclear weapon, reactivate its network of regional proxy militant groups, and brutally eliminate all domestic opposition—the same opposition that Trump publicly promised “help is on the way.”
The regional and global ripple effects of this reversal are already taking shape, Newsham argues. Chinese leader Xi Jinping had been thrown off balance by the strong U.S. military display and demonstrated political will during recent operations in Venezuela and the opening stages of the Iran conflict. Now, Xi will have little reason to fear U.S. resolve. He will learn that the U.S. rarely follows through on its threats, and that Beijing only needs to hold out and outwait American political will.
For U.S. allies across the Middle East and Indo-Pacific that counted on Washington to see the mission through and confront aggressive regional powers, this reversal will sow deep uncertainty and mistrust. In the end, Newsham concludes, it will not take long for the outcome of this policy shift to become clear. If the Trump administration finds itself having to convince the world that it won in Iran, that old unwritten rule still holds: the explanation itself is proof of defeat.