I love the ending of a terrific review- “This is a complex and full agenda, with many moving parts, for an administration that is not yet in place and has many positions to fill and get confirmed, and for a president with a short attention span.”
I admit to a similar short attention span but this is gripping and so many directions - all possible and some even desirable.
I have met too many European diplomats who have spent most of their career on Iran nuclear diplomacy and are so keen for a deal they turned blind eye to all IRGC was doing elsewhere. Even played down attempted murder of Journalist in London this spring.
President Pezeshkian is probably stronger and Clerics/IRGC feel weaker then we imagine.
My betting is Trump makes nice to the President Pezeshkian, bigs him up to weaken the clerics.
USA will be helped by Middle East/Russia economies weakness in 2025 due to long term changes in oil market that President Trump will encourage.
This is all utterly in vain unless the Palestinian problem is addressed. We shall see whether a rather unstable half-measure, like this in Lebanon, arrives in Gaza too.
The days of effortless military superiority for Israel in the region are over. They couldn’t gain control on the ground in southern Lebanon and haven’t really secured northern Israel from all attacks. The Iranian regime, hated in other ways, is still able to secure some legitimacy by being Israel’s prime and still surviving enemy
The US and Israel have a shared interest in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, but they differ in their preferences regarding the tactics. While the US hopes to achieve it by sanctions and negotiations, Israel has been trying to drag the US into a military conflict with Iran. The urgency in this area recently receded with the attacks that Israel has committed in Iran and around the region. They have probably at least delayed Iran's program for quite some time.
Apart from that, it is hard to see what vital national interest the US needs to achieve through promoting an agreement with Iran. It may just be that they are prepared to sit back and let Iran self-destruct, then when there is a new regime that really wants to do business with the Western economies, that will be the time when re-engagement of some kind gets started.
I love the ending of a terrific review- “This is a complex and full agenda, with many moving parts, for an administration that is not yet in place and has many positions to fill and get confirmed, and for a president with a short attention span.”
I admit to a similar short attention span but this is gripping and so many directions - all possible and some even desirable.
Excellent insight.
I have met too many European diplomats who have spent most of their career on Iran nuclear diplomacy and are so keen for a deal they turned blind eye to all IRGC was doing elsewhere. Even played down attempted murder of Journalist in London this spring.
President Pezeshkian is probably stronger and Clerics/IRGC feel weaker then we imagine.
My betting is Trump makes nice to the President Pezeshkian, bigs him up to weaken the clerics.
USA will be helped by Middle East/Russia economies weakness in 2025 due to long term changes in oil market that President Trump will encourage.
This is all utterly in vain unless the Palestinian problem is addressed. We shall see whether a rather unstable half-measure, like this in Lebanon, arrives in Gaza too.
The days of effortless military superiority for Israel in the region are over. They couldn’t gain control on the ground in southern Lebanon and haven’t really secured northern Israel from all attacks. The Iranian regime, hated in other ways, is still able to secure some legitimacy by being Israel’s prime and still surviving enemy
The US and Israel have a shared interest in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power, but they differ in their preferences regarding the tactics. While the US hopes to achieve it by sanctions and negotiations, Israel has been trying to drag the US into a military conflict with Iran. The urgency in this area recently receded with the attacks that Israel has committed in Iran and around the region. They have probably at least delayed Iran's program for quite some time.
Apart from that, it is hard to see what vital national interest the US needs to achieve through promoting an agreement with Iran. It may just be that they are prepared to sit back and let Iran self-destruct, then when there is a new regime that really wants to do business with the Western economies, that will be the time when re-engagement of some kind gets started.