Following Donald Trump does not necessarily bring clarity. The case of Iran offers a telling example. On January 13, after the regime violently crushed the fury of its people, the US president expressed support for the uprising, promising aid that would never come. Three days later, he thanked the same regime for having, according to him, abandoned hundreds of executions, even as reports of brutal repression mounted. On January 27, Trump then declared that a “beautiful armada” was “floating beautifully toward Iran,” now threatened with American strikes. But in the same message, he invited the regime to “negotiate a fair and equitable deal.”
The issue is no longer about the Iranian people, but about the nuclear program, which the president had previously insisted was “completely and totally obliterated” by American bombs at the end of the 12-day war launched by Israel in June 2025. A new American bombing campaign would suggest otherwise, at the risk of pushing an already desperate regime into reckless action beyond Iran’s borders. That is the situation on February 4.
These muddled statements illustrate a curse: The United States always promises to extract itself from Middle Eastern quagmires while continuing to get stuck knee-deep. The national security strategy released in December 2025 by the American administration nevertheless draws a line under Washington’s engagement in the region. “The days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over – not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was,” the document states. “It is rather emerging as a place of partnership, friendship, and investment – a trend that should be welcomed and encouraged.”
Nothing is clear
Kindness compels us to absolve the author of that passage of any charge of naivety; he is far from being the first. Jake Sullivan, national security adviser to Democratic President Joe Biden, declared just days before October 7, 2023: “The [Middle East] region is quieter than it has been for decades.”
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