President Trump’s opportunity at next week’s G-20 summit to reset U.S. relations with close allies is a particularly timely one, for it comes as Washington suffers the downsides of its frayed relations in connection with one of its biggest global challenges of the moment — its rising tensions with Iran. After launching a pressure campaign …
Continue reading “US finds itself isolated in Iran conflict”
The latest U.S. offer of negotiations with Iran prompts the same question with which every administration of recent decades has grappled: Is behavioral change in Tehran possible without regime change? We Americans want to think so, but the evidence of four decades suggests otherwise. Consequently, President Donald Trump and his team may be headed toward …
Continue reading “More U.S. talks with Iran are doomed to fail”
Iran’s threats to America’s global interests are mounting as the Islamic Republic celebrates its 40th anniversary, and these threats mock repeated U.S. efforts over the years to appease a dangerous regime. Tehran is developing longer range and more sophisticated missiles that can reach U.S. and Israeli targets; building weapons factories in Syria in hopes of …
Continue reading “40 years later, Iran needs another revolution”
President Trump hopes to use a second summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in the coming weeks to jumpstart progress on dismantling the North’s nuclear program, but Kim’s recent statements and Pyongyang’s clandestine work on its program raise serious questions about the President’s approach. To be sure, Kim has maintained his freeze on nuclear or …
Continue reading “Second Trump-Kim summit risks US credibility”
U.S. foreign policy toward Iran is approaching a “back to the future” moment, with the Trump White House resurrecting the strategy pursued by President George W. Bush (and, for a while, President Barack Obama) of pressuring Iran economically into abandoning its nuclear pursuits. The question now is whether President Trump, or if necessary a successor, …
Continue reading “Can Iran Wait out Trump’s Pressure Campaign?”
When President Trump announced last month that America would leave the global nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose U.S. sanctions, Europe’s leaders vowed to create financial mechanisms that would enable their firms to do business with Tehran and protect them from U.S. financial retaliation. On the eve of Trump’s May 8 decision, for instance, senior …
Continue reading “When it comes to Iran, America is still running the show”
With more freedom to maneuver on foreign than domestic affairs, and with their eyes focused squarely on their legacies, all modern U.S. presidents have sought to craft the elusive deal that will solve a protracted global conflict. So, with dismal prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace, we shouldn’t be surprised that President Trump is now pursuing a …
Continue reading “North Korean summit calls for a hard line from Trump”