April 15, 2025

Iran

“President Donald Trump said on Monday he believes Iran is intentionally delaying a nuclear deal with the United States and that it must abandon any drive for a nuclear weapon or face a possible military strike on Tehran's atomic facilities… Both Iran and the United States said on Saturday that they held ‘positive’ and ‘constructive’ talks in Oman. A second round is scheduled for [next] Saturday, and a source briefed on the planning said the meeting was likely to be held in Rome.” Reuters

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From the Left

The left is cautiously optimistic that a new deal with Iran can be reached similar to the one in 2015.

“The Israeli government and hawks in Washington have been pushing for a ‘Libya-style’ agreement… Under this deal, Libya’s nuclear enrichment program was completely dismantled and removed, as opposed to maintained at a limited level under international monitoring as Iran’s was under the 2015 deal…

“Of course, Qaddafi was overthrown and killed eight years later in an international military intervention, so his case has become something of a cautionary tale for governments about the dangers of giving up weapons of mass destruction

“And though it would be extremely ironic, considering that it was Trump who tore up what he called ‘the worst deal in history,’ it’s not out of the question that a president who loves making deals could agree to another one that freezes or reduces Iran’s nuclear stockpile rather than eliminating its program altogether.”

Joshua Keating, Vox

Trump has shifted the goal toward the results of the original Iran deal that he blew up. ‘You know, it’s not a complicated formula,’ he added. ‘Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That’s all there is.’ So he’s focusing on setting limits to the program that draws the line at construction of a weapon rather than pursuing the likely impossible goal of full destruction of all facilities. There was no mention of additional concessions on ballistic missiles…

“While Trump’s incompetence and ignorance may doom the talks, all the arrows are pointing toward Trump at least partially repairing the damage he did seven years [ago] by abrogating a successful deal with Iran… Iran recently added a sweetener. President Masoud Pezeshkian said, ‘American investors: Come and invest.’… Trump, being who he is, no doubt interpreted this sentence as an invitation to graft.”

Joe Cirincione, New Republic

Some argue, “His fans keep reciting the canard that he intuits the Art of the Deal or plays multi-dimensional chess. In reality, the president has been contradicting himself and garbling his signals to an extent that now hampers negotiations with any rational actors, whether they’re in Tehran, Beijing, Moscow or Pyongyang, or even (when the subject is tariffs) in Brussels, Ottawa or Mexico City. Not to mention irrational actors…

“As MAGA stans gloat, Trump is so unpredictable that his opponents get scared, which allegedly makes them weak and him strong. As the scholar Roseanne McManus has shown, however, this strategy, or disposition, easily backfires. Adversaries may conclude that the madman is a wild card who cannot be trusted to abide by any agreement, so that yielding is at best pointless and at worst suicidal. That is how Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, probably sees the American president.”

Andreas Kluth, Bloomberg

From the Right

The right urges Trump to push for total dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program.

The right urges Trump to push for total dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program.

“Crushed by sanctions imposed by the U.S. when Trump ripped up the Obama-era Iranian nuclear deal in 2018, which severely restricted oil exports, the Iranian rial has plummeted, losing over 90% of its value. Today, over one-third of the Iranian population lives below the poverty line…

“With its military and economic capabilities in tatters, its ability to retaliate is severely hampered. Its two major retaliations against Israel in the past year, which included massive ballistic missile and drone strikes, both failed… In the past 18 months, the Israelis have [also] effectively neutered two of three main Iranian military proxies in the Middle East: Hamas and Hezbollah… Trump is wise to exert pressure by every available means now.”

Peter Laffin, Washington Examiner

“Mr. Trump has also laid down a tough marker that Iran must dismantle its nuclear program, a la Libya in 2003, if it wants to avoid a military attack… An ostentatious lineup of B-2 bombers in Diego Garcia spotted by civilian satellites drove home the warning. This is the opposite of the Obama-Biden appeasement strategy that yielded more Iranian nuclear progress and Iran-backed proxy wars across the Middle East…

“Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s goal will be to get the same deal [as under Obama]. That’s why foreign-supervised dismantlement and intrusive, on-demand inspections are essential… A dismantlement deal is preferable to an attack on Iran that would have uncertain consequences, but the military destruction of most of Iran’s program is better than a deal that leaves Iran able to build a bomb after it has had time to rebuild.”

Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal

Some argue, “Iran is not Iraq circa 2003, nor is it some tinpot dictatorship ripe for a Predator-drone makeover. It’s a 3,000-year-old culture with a population of 85 million, rugged as the Zagros Mountains, with a military hardened by decades of sanctions, assassinations, military attacks, cyber attacks, proxy wars, and constant threats from top leaders of Israel and the U.S. to destroy their country. The Islamic Republic has spent years preparing for this very fight

“Let’s play this out. Day one: bombs fall… Day two: Iran retaliates—maybe with missiles on U.S. bases in Qatar or shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, whence a fifth of the world’s oil flows. Day three: oil prices spike, markets tank… Hezbollah rains rockets on Tel Aviv, the Houthis blockade the Red Sea, and militia groups in Iraq and Syria start targeting American troops again. Before you know it, we’re waist-deep in another quagmire… America wants jobs, borders, sanity—not body bags and budget deficits.”

George D. O’Neill Jr., American Conservative