President Donald Trump’s growing list of failed Middle East deals demonstrates that his attempts to push critical issues into the future have met with limited success.

As global attention returns to the latest developments in talks with Iran, the US-driven peace plan for Gaza that President Donald Trump announced just the other day is already dying a slow death.

Like the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in June between Washington and Tehran that was supposed to end the Iran War, the Gaza peace plan rests on misplaced assumptions about the parties involved, their long-term strategic goals, and the compromises that they will realistically make.

In a sense, the Iran and Gaza plans were each destined to promise more than they could deliver. That’s because each declared a US victory up front while pushing off the thorniest issues to months-long negotiations that no one had reason to believe would succeed.

By trumpeting each plan as a transformative breakthrough, only to see each crumble almost immediately, Washington is losing credibility with its allies and empowering its adversaries in the region and beyond.

To advance US interests now and over the long term, Washington needs to view the region with clearer eyes—recognizing the hard truths about the goals that Tehran and its terrorist proxies will not abandon, and about the threats that any government in Jerusalem will not tolerate. And it needs to plan accordingly.

Regarding Gaza, the agreement that Trump spearheaded calls for Hamas to disarm, for Israel to withdraw over the coming months, and for the parties to create a timetable for those steps within two weeks. But, as events of recent days show all too well, the plan doesn’t reflect realities on the ground. 

Hamas, which retains its genocidal intentions toward Israel, says it won’t surrender its most powerful weaponry until Palestinians have a state. But, per those intentions, Hamas means a state that replaces Israel “from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea,” not one that lives alongside Israel in peace.

Moreover, disarmament is already proving to be a pipe dream. Hamas is now distributing rifles “under the guise of personal firearms,” thereby ensuring that its fighters have guns no matter what happens at the negotiating table, and a Palestinian source told the Jerusalem Post that “Hamas will not disarm. Period.”

Not surprisingly, Israel says it won’t withdraw from Gaza until Hamas disarms. The Board of Peace, which will oversee post-war Gaza, seems to recognize Israeli concerns and has softened its earlier demands that Israel begin to withdraw as Hamas begins to disarm. It now says Israel won’t withdraw beyond the Yellow Line—the border between Hamas- and Israeli-controlled territory under the October 2025 ceasefire—until the “decommissioning” of Hamas “is complete,” including “light weapons, heavy weapons, and…tunnels.”

With Iran, the obstacles to implementing the Memorandum of Understanding and ending the war are no smaller than those in Gaza, which explains why the war continues, and US demands remain unmet.

Under the MOU, Washington will end its naval blockade and lift all sanctions against Iran, Tehran will reopen to Strait of Hormuz and end its nuclear pursuits, the two sides will agree on how to dispose of Iran’s stockpiled enriched uranium, and military operations will end “on all fronts, including in Lebanon” (where Israel is exchanging gunfire with Tehran’s most powerful terrorist client, Hezbollah).

Having closed the strait, however, Iran is now demanding to retain control over it, which would give the regime leverage to complicate oil flows, wreak havoc with the United States and other economies, and undermine “freedom of the seas”—the long-recognized international principle that the United States helps enforce around the world. Washington has rejected Tehran’s demand, but whether it will continue to wage an increasingly unpopular war over that principle remains to be seen.

Like every president since George W. Bush, Trump has vowed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But Tehran has never done more than temporarily limit its nuclear work. It has failed to fully cooperate with nuclear inspectors, has enriched uranium to near weapons-grade purity, is now rebuilding its nuclear facilities, and has offered no indications that it will ever fully abandon its nuclear pursuits.

As for Lebanon, Hezbollah—which, like Hamas, harbors genocidal intentions toward Israel—refuses to genuinely disarm, rejects new Israeli-Lebanese political arrangements, is urging Beirut to end talks with Jerusalem, and continues to attack Israeli forces with new tactics. Not surprisingly, Israel has made clear that it won’t withdraw until Hezbollah no longer has the ability to threaten the Jewish state.

In both cases, Washington’s declarations of victory are proving premature—and damaging. By fostering framework agreements that deferred tough issues, they have weakened US credibility, tempted allies to look elsewhere for security, and emboldened adversaries to doubt US resolve and staying power.

About the Author: Lawrence Haas

Lawrence J. Haas is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and the author of, among other books, Harry and Arthur: Truman, Vandenberg, and the Partnership That Created the Free World. Haas writes widely on foreign affairs, is quoted often in newspapers and magazines, and appears frequently on TV and radio. Previously, he was communications director for Vice President Al Gore and, before that, for the Office of Management and Budget.

The post How the Premature Gaza and Iran Deals Weakened US Credibility  appeared first on The National Interest.