OK. I have been doing my best to read the Trump tea leaves, figure out the Art of the Deal, and parse all the information out there so that I can figure out Donald Trump’s strategy in the Iran War.
I thought I had a good handle on it, and until the past few days, Trump’s behavior accorded pretty well with my overall theory.
Trump’s strategy appeared to have been to pressure Iran into full and complete capitulation on the issues of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles (which exist to make attacking Iran nearly impossible), and to get the Strait of Hormuz open.
I thought the combination of military and economic pressure was a reasonable strategy, although, as I have said multiple times, it is only the best of a number of bad options and not guaranteed to work. Trump appeared to know that, which is why he kept threatening to start blowing up bridges and power plants.
Still, I am beginning to wonder whether I was completely wrong about Trump’s goals and strategy, or perhaps he is now behaving as he is because he is getting cold feet.
In other words, with Trump’s about-face on Project Freedom and his unwillingness to follow through on his threats against Iran if it responded militarily, I now fear that he is in TACO mode, which is something I never expected to see.
Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective.
First of all,…
— Aimen Dean (@AimenDean) May 7, 2026
Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective.
First of all, contrary to the impression being created, the GCC were NOT blindsided by Project Freedom.
They knew about it beforehand. Roughly half a day before. The airspace was opened. The facilities were available. Nobody objected. There was broad support for the idea because, at least publicly, Project Freedom was supposed to be a limited humanitarian-security operation aimed at relieving the 22,000 sailors trapped around Hormuz and allowing shipping lanes to breathe again.
Nobody in the GCC had a problem with that.
But here is the issue .. and this is the part the NBC article completely misses.
If you are asking GCC countries to participate in such an operation, then you need to be upfront about the rules of engagement from day one!
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.”
And this is exactly what shocked the Saudis. Not the Iranian attack itself.
The UAE/GCC expected retaliation.. This is Iran. Nobody in the Gulf is naïve about that anymore. The shock came from the American reaction afterwards.
You had attacks against Emirati infrastructure. Fujairah was targeted. Multiple waves involving drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles.
And Washington’s response was basically: “Meh. Minor incident. Let’s not escalate.”
Minor incident?!
For the GCC that was madness.
Because what Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi suddenly realized was that Trump’s obsession with preserving “The Deal” had apparently reached the point where Gulf energy infrastructure was now considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of his precious negotiations.
Everything became: The deal. The deal. The beautiful deal. The greatest deal. The mother of all deals.
The ultimate “Art of the deal”
Or perhaps, more accurately: The ultimate fart of the deal.
Because from the Gulf perspective, this stopped looking like strategy and started looking like desperate political vanity mixed with deadly wishful thinking.
Had the GCC been told beforehand: “Listen, whatever Iran does to you during Project Freedom, America will not retaliate because we do not want to endanger negotiations…”
…they would have almost certainly refused participation from the start.
The problem was not Project Freedom itself.
The problem was discovering midway through the operation that the GCC countries were apparently expected to sit there quietly as punching bags while Washington played negotiation theatrics with Tehran. So the Saudis and Kuwaitis pulled plug!
Because the GCC know something US usually forgets:
Iran plays the long game.
You can freeze enrichment. Pause enrichment. Delay enrichment. Sign ten agreements. Twenty agreements. Forty agreements.
But if the infrastructure remains… If the centrifuges remain… If the IRGC remains… If the proxy network remains…
then eventually the game resumes.
There will be another distraction. Another pandemic. Another financial crisis. Another war somewhere else. Another paralysis in Washington.
And while the world is distracted, enrichment quietly resumes again.
Ironically, much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile expanded during the pandemic years precisely because global attention was elsewhere.
Judging by the reaction to the UAE attacks, the Saudis and Kuwaitis concluded that Trump’s version of deterrence had become:
“Please absorb the missiles quietly because I’m trying to write the sequel to “The Fart of the Deal.”
Trump’s reversal, within a day, of his commitment to lead ships out of the Gulf for “humanitarian” reasons appeared to be genius. It put the onus on Iran, and if they interfered, restarting the war would be an easy call.
Instead, when Iran attacked, he made up an excuse and called the operation off. And, as information is trickling out of the Middle East, it is not because anybody objected to the Project, but rather to Trump’s apparent unwillingness to retaliate against Iran for attacking Gulf states.
⭕ This is another confirmation of what @AimenDean posted this morning. The Gulf states are telling President Trump two things:
1) The Iran deal is BS and not worth the paper it is written on
2) Finish what you have started because the alternative is much worse. https://t.co/NrZxcr4h2D— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) May 7, 2026
Gulf states have been paying a very high price in this war, and have so far been quite willing to bear it if it means defanging Iran. But they now fear that Trump is going to leave them high and dry, and in a worse position than they were before the war started, not the better one they expected.
All of these countries host American military bases and buy American military equipment as part of a quid pro quo. They are quite aware of the Iran threat, and host American troops and naval vessels in order to boost their own deterrence. Now that deterrence has failed, and in consequence of the administration’s own actions, they expect follow-through.
No doubt Trump promised it to them. He has coordinated with them throughout the war. So their seeming discontent makes sense.
Second confirmation to what I posted few hours ago regarding Saudi Arabia and the NBC article! https://t.co/wVxF6azXAn
— Aimen Dean (@AimenDean) May 7, 2026
The NBC report on Trump’s decision-making reflects the thinking in Washington, but apparently not that in the Middle East. If it’s true that Saudi Arabia was unhappy that Trump is too obsessed with a deal and not enough with ensuring the war achieves its goals, then…Trump is basically looking for an updated Obama plan.
EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s abrupt U-turn on a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz came after Saudi Arabia suspended U.S. access to its bases and airspace. https://t.co/ugxw2ilzpD
— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 7, 2026
Ed has expressed more skepticism about Trump’s maneuverings than I have, and it looks like he is more right than I have been.
Perhaps there is another dimension to this chess game, but it looks more and more like Trump is going to let the Iranians off the hook. They will have suffered a vast series of tactical defeats, but will achieve a strategic victory, or at least a stalemate. More or less along the lines of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, in which the militarily defeated communists won a reprieve and then eventual victory.
To say I would be disappointed at this outcome would be a vast understatement. Trump would be snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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