Associated Press President Donald Trump departs after speaking with reporters during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) Iran’s almost immediate violations of the U.S.-negotiated ceasefire last week showed again the futility of relying on the Islamic Republic’s commitments to the international order.
President Trump’s “historic” agreement with Iran will not be judged kindly by history. It is more damaging to U.S. and Western interests than President Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump rightly excoriated for its ineffectiveness in curbing Iran’s nuclear program, and for its lavish cash payment of $300 billion to Iran. Trump’s deal is even more favorable for Iran and its anti-Western partners.
To Trump’s credit, the four-month conflict has temporarily set back Iran’s nuclear weapons program, decimated its navy and air force, and degraded its air defense and ballistic missile programs. But, to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and allow the free flow of oil, and to enhance the prospect of permanently eliminating Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, Trump apparently committed the Gulf States and unidentified private investors to pay billions to Iran.
Iran has called this financial transaction “reparations” for damage caused by U.S. bombing. Yet there was no reciprocal compensation for destroyed U.S. military assets, or the thousands of military and civilian American deaths caused by Iran directly or through its proxies over the years. Further, considering that Gulf nations are expected to foot much of the bill, there is no compensation for the damage inflicted by Iran’s recent strikes. Israel’s losses from Iran’s aggression are also entirely unrecompensed. Nor is there any off-setting accounting for the massive profits Iran reaped from its illegal sale of oil smuggled through Hormuz in sanctions-evading operations.
The ultimate ramification from the Iran conflict, however, will be a major erosion of U.S. credibility in current and future confrontations with America’s other major adversaries: China, Russia and North Korea. All have witnessed Trump’s lack of staying power in any actual or potential kinetic confrontation.
He has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to exercise American military power, but only if it happens alongside a braver, more relentless, U.S. ally, like Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel, or if it involves a quick, “clean” action like the Qasem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killings, the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, or the initial “obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear facilities.
All those military actions achieved dramatic results with a limited application of violence — an efficient, prudent and highly desirable method of gaining a military objective. But Trump has proved equally adept at redefining or simply abandoning the original objectives. His performance in Ukraine, Venezuela and Iran reveal that he lacks the vision and tenacity to sustain prolonged military confrontations, even if they are not kinetic.
It is why the theoretical second exchange of hostilities with China, which prides itself on strategic patience and cold-blooded disregard for human costs, will be the determinative test of will in a conflict over Taiwan. Putting at risk the things Beijing ultimately cares about — its international reputation as a triumphant rising power, and its iron hold on domestic power — will ultimately be the only imperative that will moderate Beijing’s behavior.
The limited war with Iran has also revealed a strategic vulnerability of the United States and the West: the precarious economic exposure of maritime straits, literal chokeholds on international trade through which most of the world’s commerce flows.
The Taiwan Strait’s critical role in the shipping of 20 percent of goods and material from Asia — especially Taiwan’s high-quality computer chips — is as critical to the global economy as the flow of mid-Eastern oil through the Strait of Hormuz. As Iran has shown, the high-tech systems modern militaries have at their disposal do not eliminate threats in narrow, constricted waterways from rudimentary conventional weapons like sea mines and swarm boats. The Panama and Suez Canals are even more subject to sabotage and naval blockage.
Deterrence and defensive clearance measures will be needed against an adversary’s asymmetric operations. They should be accompanied by a credible U.S. commitment to escalate as necessary to defend vital U.S. and Western interests. Trump must wield his unorthodox diplomatic and deal-making skills to convince our allies of the need to cooperate fully in collective defense planning — in advance of the threat, not after kinetics are already imminent or underway. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who said he greatly admires Trump’s decisive leadership qualities, would be a willing, capable and supportive partner.
The Trump administration needs to finish the task of regime change in Iran, so that one major hostile player can be removed from the equation.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies, a member of the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute and member of the advisory board of the Vandenberg Coalition.
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