Trump and Netanyahu are heading for an Oval Office showdown

July 05, 2025

Bibi Netanyahu’s Oval Office meeting with Donald Trump on Monday could be a game-changer. They will undoubtedly focus on Iran, Gaza, and Syria’s new regime among other subjects. But how close are the two leaders’ positions, and can their differences be reconciled?

Both will declare the meeting “successful,” but the reality may be quite different. On Iran, Trump crossed a Rubicon by ordering direct US military action against nuclear-weapons-related targets in Iran. He may think the strikes were simply a “one and done” affair, but, if so, he is badly mistaken. Trump put his personal prestige on the line, not to mention America’s. Despite his contention that the B-2 bunker-buster raids “completely and totally obliterated” the targeted nuclear-program sites, much remains to be done.

No one knows that better than Netanyahu, who has focused on the Iranian nuclear threat for over three decades. Although he persuaded (or manoeuvred) Trump into using military force, Trump swerved immediately after receiving favourable reports on the strikes to impose a cease-fire on Israel and Iran. Netanyahu had little choice but to stand down, having achieved two major objectives: getting Trump into the fight and imposing significant, albeit not fatal, damage on Iran’s nuclear project. Iran also had little choice, having been pounded by Israel and the US, but to launch merely pro forma retaliation, shake its rhetorical fist in defiance, and hope to escape any additional destruction.

Nonetheless, Netanyahu sees that the time is ripe for further action against Iran, including actions to encourage the domestic opposition to move against the ayatollahs. Iran’s air defences are now essentially flat, but the moment will not last forever. Top Iranian commanders and nuclear scientists have been eliminated, but their ranks will reform, and their respective work will resume. The ayatollahs have clearly signalled their continuing resolve by effectively expelling all International Atomic Energy Agency personnel from the country.

The last thing Netanyahu wants is for Trump to throw Tehran an economic or political lifeline. Israel seeks regime change in Iran, and Netanyahu needs at least Trump’s acquiescence for Israel to continue deconstructing the remains of Iran’s nuclear enterprise. Further US participation would be icing on the cake. By contrast, Trump desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize. After all, he reasons, Barack Obama received one (which he didn’t deserve), so why not Trump?

Trump’s Nobel obsession now seems concentrated on Gaza, where the ongoing conflict has intensified since the Israel-Iran ceasefire took effect. He has pressured both Israel and Hamas to reach agreement to effect the return some still-unsettled number of Israeli hostages and remains, in exchange releasing possibly 1,000 Hamas prisoners in Israeli custody, plus a 60-day ceasefire. The sticking point remains Hamas’s insistence on a complete end to the war, or, reportedly, a commitment that talks to end the war commence immediately after the hostage/prisoner exchanges.

This sort of framework has been used before, but its durability remains just as doubtful as other post-October 7, 2023 efforts. Trump wants to announce a cease-fire on or before the Monday meeting, but how long it lasts is anyone’s guess. Hamas undoubtedly wants relief from Israeli military strikes, and domestic political pressure to secure the release of more hostages has left Netanyahu little manoeuvring room. But, apart from humanitarian objectives regarding the hostages, Israel gains no strategic upside from yet another cease fire. Israel has repeatedly suspended combat operations and withdrawn from already-secured positions in Gaza, and then been forced to re-take them, at considerable human and material costs to the Israeli Defense Forces. Lengthening the war also imposes additional strains on an already stressed Israeli economy.

The collapse of Syria’s Assad regime, replaced by former Al-Nusra Front terrorists (now known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or “HTS”), was undoubtedly a serious setback for Iran. Acceding to Saudi Arabia’s requests, Trump lifted US economic sanctions previously imposed against Assad’s government, but substantial questions remain whether HTS has actually renounced terrorism.

Its leader, Syria’s de facto head of government, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is also an unknown, having shed his combat fatigues for a suit, trimmed his beard, and dropped his nom de guerre for, apparently, his real name. In the meantime, Israel continues military operations inside Syria, in addition to holding onto an extended buffer zone occupied after Assad’s fall.

Perhaps nothing concrete regarding Syria will emerge from the Netanyahu-Trump meeting, but the two leaders need a better sense of each other’s concerns and objectives. Since the First World War, the Middle East has seen more diplomatic efforts crash and burn than any other geographic hot spot. Iran and Gaza today are unlikely to prove more successful.

Monday’s most important outcome in the West Wing will be decisions on the possible further use of US and Israeli military force to achieve key objectives on both fronts.

This article was originally published in The Telegraph on July 5, 2025. To read the original article, please click here.

Trump’s Work in Iran Has Only Begun

July 03, 2025

Satisfaction and frustration most accurately capture what should be America’s reaction to last month’s Israeli-U.S. military strikes on Iran.

Satisfaction because the raids, particularly against the nuclear-weapons program, may have achieved what decades of illusion, naïveté, misguided diplomacy and inadequate economic sanctions failed to achieve, and frustration because the strikes were terminated early and unnecessarily.

It remains to be seen if Washington has learned enough of a lesson to complete the destruction of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, by military means if necessary. As on many previous occasions, Iran has announced that it will cease cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, demonstrating that there is currently no serious chance of a satisfactory diplomatic solution.

The early signs are mixed and opaque. Much depends on the stability of the ayatollahs’ regime and its internal divisions, and whether Iran’s population will publicly express its discontent.

Unfortunately, the opposition in Iran, while national in scope, is not well organized, and the regime’s potential for brutal repression has been repeatedly demonstrated. Much also depends on whether America’s leaders have the necessary resolve, focus and persistence — a matter in considerable doubt.

The Middle East has changed significantly since Iranian proxies enacted on Oct. 7, 2023, the culmination of the Islamic republic’s “Ring of Fire” strategy — surrounding Israel with enemies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza and foreign militias in Syria. Along almost every important strategic dimension, Iran is today far weaker, and Israel (and the United States) far stronger.

Nuclear-weapons factors of production delayed are nuclear weapons denied, albeit temporarily. There is zero evidence the ayatollahs are prepared to abandon their nuclear dreams, and this is certainly not the moment for Washington to throw Tehran political or economic lifelines, particularly not a “new” nuclear deal with the United States.

Immediately after President Trump prematurely declared victory, ended U.S. strikes and forced Israel and Iran into a cease-fire, fierce debate erupted over initial estimates of the damage inflicted on Tehran’s nuclear project. With precious little evidence, Mr. Trump immediately proclaimed the “complete and total obliteration” of Iran’s efforts, while anonymous sources breathlessly maintained that a hot-off-the-presses preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency analysis concluded America had set Iran’s nuclear program back only a few months. The day after the attack, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan Caine, said accurately that it was “way too early” to make a viable assessment.

To borrow from Matthew Arnold, ignorant armies clashed by night in this battle for control of the political narrative. Only further data can clarify or perhaps resolve where the truth lies. I am satisfied for now with the subsequent conclusion of Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that the Israeli-U.S. attacks caused “enormous damage” to Iran’s nuclear efforts. Enormous yes, but still not enough.

The inevitable continuing debate over whether further military force will be necessary will color both Washington’s view on Tehran’s remaining nuclear threat and how to deal with its badly weakened regime. Those who opposed using military force, including several Democratic senators who now criticize Israel and the United States for failing to destroy every aspect of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, implicitly argue that we shouldn’t have destroyed any of it. Where is the enriched uranium, they ask? What about newer or more obscure sites of nuclear activity, like Pickaxe Mountain near Natanz? What about the reality that pummeling the physical program does not eliminate the knowledge Iran retains to rebuild it?

In a perfect world, all of Iran’s uranium, at whatever enrichment level, would be removed and stored at a safe place, like Oak Ridge, Tenn., where what was once Libya’s nuclear-weapons program was shipped. Any uranium in the hands of a proliferator is potentially dangerous.

Whatever stockpile the ayatollahs may have previously hidden or recently spirited away from known nuclear facilities is truly dangerous only when weaponized. It must be converted into uranium metal to fashion nuclear weapons. As best we know, Tehran’s conversion capabilities, both from yellowcake to UF6 and from UF6 to metal, are most likely now inoperable.

Moreover, Iran’s weapons-fabrication facilities are either known and destroyed; underground and possibly irradiated; or at least capable of being observed and therefore destroyed later. Critical here is continuous American and Israeli surveillance, and the resolve to strike again if necessary.

The existence of unknown locations cannot be discounted. But the possibility that everything was not destroyed in the first attacks is not a legitimate reason to have forsworn those attacks.

Some people are never satisfied. If the United States had instead bombed uranium-storage facilities, those opposed to the strikes would complain about releasing radioactive materials into the atmosphere. Patience and persistence are required to stifle such a dogged proliferator like Iran.

Ironically, the continued existence of the scientific and technological know-how for Iran to rebuild its nuclear capacity was precisely what concerned George W. Bush’s administration as it faced Saddam Hussein. After the Persian Gulf war of 1991, Mr. Hussein kept on his payroll some 3,000 “nuclear mujahedeen,” as he called them, to recreate Iraq’s nuclear-weapons program. They were well known to U.N. weapons inspectors after the 1991 war. After the second war in the gulf, the United States and other coalition nations had programs to keep them gainfully employed so that they could not be hired by other rogue states.

That intellectual firepower alone was a compelling argument for regime change in Iraq. Iran now has the same asset, although degraded by Israel’s most recent attacks.

Nonetheless, many are still reflexively pursuing the Holy Grail of an Iran nuclear deal, perhaps including, according to news reports, the Trump administration. Whatever efforts are made, however, will simply be a waste of oxygen.

Satisfying America’s legitimate demands requires Iran to do a full Libya, meaning real performance in denuclearizing, not just acquiescing to treaty verbiage. It requires that Iran surrender all of its weapons-related assets, meaning any enriched uranium and all remaining physical assets, including dual-use capabilities.

However, absent a change of government in Tehran, which Washington should support, a full Libya is impossible. Unlike Muammar el-Qaddafi, the mullahs, already badly humiliated, realize that further humiliation would fatally weaken their rule. They will never voluntarily accept that fate. Instead, they will resume their earlier tactic of using negotiations to string the West along until memories dim and, as the old saying goes, “zeal for a deal” takes over, as it did for Barack Obama, producing the fatally flawed 2015 Iran agreement.

Closely related to the suggestion of more diplomacy is the assumption that the International Atomic Energy Agency is the solution. Realistically, the ayatollahs are no more likely to acquiesce to the agency’s prerequisites for a proper inventory and cleanup job than they would to American or Israeli prerequisites.

The atomic energy agency does important work, but it is neither an espionage agency nor an occupying force. Much of the most important and sensitive information it has acquired over the years came from the United States, Britain and Israel. Tehran has long treated the agency with disdain, following what James Baker once called the “cheat and then retreat” strategy to defy effective international inspection. Most important, the issues Iran poses are political, not technical. The atomic agency can be useful in a future solution, but not as the centerpiece.

The all-purpose answer from those who prefer wringing their hands to accomplishing anything: Remember Iraq. The critics of the U.S. strike on Iran are fighting the last war. The worldwide terrorist proxies Iran deployed and its advanced nuclear programs are orders of magnitude more threatening than Mr. Hussein’s Iraq. Moreover, “no boots on the ground” need be involved. The short answer is that Iran is not Iraq, which Jerusalem and Washington have already partly demonstrated.

Israel most likely has the resolve to do what is necessary to ensure its survival. The real question for America’s survival is whether the same can be said for the current U.S. administration.

This article was first published in The New York Times on July 3, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Trump did the right thing in Iran

June 22, 2025

President Donald Trump did precisely the right thing for America by coming to Israel’s assistance and striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran, through its terrorist proxy Hamas, began a war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, but its nuclear threat began over three decades ago, posing a risk not just to Israel but to the United States and all its allies. It was long past time that Washington did more to aid Israel in defeating Iran and took direct action against Tehran’s nuclear proliferation efforts.

After more than two decades of Iran seeking deliverable nuclear weapons, no one can say Washington has acted precipitously, as if 20-plus years of Tehran’s intransigence and deceit were not enough. Just this March, when Israel appeared poised to strike, Trump offered Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei 60 more days of negotiations. They passed without agreement, surprising almost no one. There was effectively zero chance Iran would agree to any nuclear deal acceptable to America. The world would have been materially less safe if Iran had been allowed to enrich uranium domestically, as in former President Barack Obama’s 2015 agreement.

Trump offered one more delay to see “whether or not people come to their senses.” They clearly were not doing so, and, accordingly, America struck. Further delay would have played into the ayatollahs’ hands.

Delay is always on the side of the would-be nuclear proliferator, particularly here, where Trump himself said Iran was very near actually constructing a nuclear weapon. It was also almost certainly doing everything possible to conceal, move, or harden its nuclear assets against further Israeli or American strikes. Tehran can’t protect everything, but it was taking advantage of each passing hour to protect what it could, including the nuclear scientists and military leaders of its efforts, whom Israel has been systematically eliminating. A joint U.S.-Israeli operation from the outset would have been far more effective, quickly frustrating Iranian efforts to protect its nuclear and missile sites.

There are undoubtedly additional measures now underway to protect American deployed forces and civilian personnel in the region against Iranian retaliation now that we have taken offensive military action. Similarly, we should continue bringing forward additional forces to bolster Israeli and Gulf Arab state defenses against Tehran military retaliation. While Gulf spokesmen have publicly criticized both Jerusalem’s and Washington’s bombing, they know full well that eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat will benefit the entire region, as will overthrowing the ayatollahs. Understandably, the Arabs simply want to avoid becoming collateral damage; their defense is entirely consistent with protecting American military and civilian personnel on the Arab side of the Gulf. In none of these cases is there any question of U.S. ground forces being involved inside Iran. That is simply not on the table.

Even more importantly, now is the time not just to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but also its core military foundations, thus adding a further, potentially dispositive blow to the regime. Iran’s citizens know that the ayatollahs have spent uncounted billions of dollars aiding terrorist proxies, supporting Syria’s Assad regime, and advancing ballistic-missile and nuclear-weapons efforts that now lie in ruins. In return, Iran’s people have received no benefit whatever, which could cause them to rise against the regime. Only the ayatollahs’ fall will bring any prospect for real Middle Eastern peace and stability, the most compelling reason for Washington to intervene militarily.

One often-made argument against physically destroying Iran’s nuclear-weapons assets is that it would be futile: The regime would still have the scientific knowledge necessary to recreate the program after hostilities end. Ironically, this concern, which is legitimate, precisely matches U.S. analysis of Iraq in George W. Bush’s administration before the Second Gulf War.

After the First Gulf War, U.N. weapons inspectors found Iraq President Saddam Hussein’s nuclear efforts to be far more advanced than previously understood. The physical aspects of Saddam’s nuclear work that could be identified were destroyed, but one key element remained largely untouched. Saddam called Iraq’s cadre of some 3,000 nuclear scientists and technicians his “nuclear mujaheddin.” He kept them in place, waiting until U.N. weapons inspectors no longer roamed Iraq and international sanctions imposed in 1990 after his invasion of Kuwait were lifted.

Even if, when Bush 43 ordered Saddam’s regime overthrown, there were no existing facilities to produce nuclear weapons, Iraq still had the intellectual wherewithal to create them. That, along with several other compelling reasons, was enough to justify overthrowing Saddam and sending the “nuclear mujaheddin” off to more productive work. In Iran’s case, it is also precisely why the ultimate objective of destroying the nuclear-weapons program is to help destabilize the ayatollahs and thereby enable their overthrow.

Peace and security in the Middle East are impossible while the ayatollahs rule in Tehran. Overthrowing the current regime is a necessary, even if not a sufficient, condition to reach that goal. The sooner the better.

This article was first published in The Washington Examiner on June 22, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Iran’s Ayatollahs Are Weaker Than Ever

June 16, 2025

Iran’s war against Israel took another turn for the worse last week as Operation Rising Lion struck Tehran’s nuclear-weapons program, air defenses and military leadership. Iran’s retaliation has so far been uneven and ineffective. Contrary to the scaremongers, World War III hasn’t broken out, nor will it.

But what next? The 1979 Islamic Revolution retains power in Tehran, and it could rebuild its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs and terrorist networks. The only lasting foundation for Middle East peace and security is overthrowing the ayatollahs. America’s declared objective should be just that. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the case last week, telling the Iranian people: “The time has come for you to unite around your flag and your historic legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime.”

Despite outward appearances of solid authoritarianism, the regime in Tehran faces widening discontent. The opposition extends across Iran, in the smaller cities and countryside, far beyond Tehran, where the few Western journalists congregate. Iran’s economy has been parlous for decades, and Israeli strikes on oil refineries may weaken it further. Citizen protests in 2018-19 provoked heightened nationwide repression. International antiproliferation and antiterrorism sanctions caused part of the distress, but the fundamental lesson is plain: Never trust your economy to medieval religious fanatics. There is widespread outrage at the corruption and self-enrichment of senior clerics and flag officers (and their families) in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and regular military.

The regime’s imperial projects have done nothing for Iran’s people. They have brought only devastation in Iran itself and elsewhere. Untold billions of dollars were spent over decades to empower terrorist proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis), to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and to undertake massive nuclear and missile projects that now lie in ashes.

Click here to read the full article.

Will Trump TACO on Iran?

June 11, 2025

The world is undeniably close to learning whether Iran can yet again out-negotiate and out-last feckless Western politicians and save its nuclear-weapons program. On June 5, Donald Trump said(https://www.axios.com/2025/06/04/iran-nuclear-deal-trump) Iran was “slow-walking” nuclear negotiations with the United States. His two-month time limit to the Ayatollah Khamenei has either expired already or soon will(https://www.axios.com/2025/03/19/trump-letter-iran-nuclear-deal).

The moment of decision is near, but there is no credible evidence which way Trump will go. Is he prepared to accept Israel using force against Iran’s nuclear program, either acting alone or alongside the United States? Or will we see another episode of what Wall Street calls the “TACO trade”: Trump Always Chickens Out? At this point, not even Trump knows the answer.

He may hope to proclaim he has produced a better nuclear deal than Barrack Obama’s flawed 2015 agreement, but this is a risky domestic gambit. Trump faces palpable political vulnerability if he agrees to something that looks, in substance, like Obama’s deal, permitting Iran to continue any uranium-enrichment capability, let alone one as large and sophisticated as Tehran has already developed. Indeed, if Iran were allowed to do so under whatever guise, including an “international consortium,” Trumpian claims of outdoing Obama and actually stopping Tehran’s drive for nuclear weapons will be immediately exposed as false.

This risk to Trump of appearing to “chicken out” to Iran is just as high even if an agreement is disguised as “interim,” or “time limited” or qualified in any cosmetic way. A poorly camouflaged deal is so intellectually dishonest that, when inevitably discovered, the political damage to Trump would be extensive and lasting. Trump’s “zeal for a deal” has already united congressional Republicanshttps://jewishinsider.com/2025/05/most-congressional-republicans-insist-on-no-enrichment-for-iran/), notably tame on almost every other issue, against allowing Iran any enrichment capabilities. Trump says repeatedly he doesn’t want to see force used, but he will soon have no choice, given his own framing of the Iran issue, let alone political and military reality.

Middle Eastern oil-producing states are reportedly working quietly to facilitate a US-Iran deal. Of course, Gulf Arab states would respond affirmatively if asked whether they prefer seeing Iran’s nuclear-weapons program ended peacefully. But in real-world terms, they are confronted by a different question. If they must face the risk of hostilities with Iran, would they prefer to do so before Tehran possesses deliverable nuclear weapons, or after? Understood fully, there is only one correct answer, unless Gulf Cooperation Council members wish to live in Tehran’s nuclear shadow, or to launch full-scale efforts to achieve nuclear-weapons status, precipitating an arms race in which they start far behind

Unsurprisingly, Arabian Peninsula leaders have indicated their worries that, given Tehran’s bizarre worldview, they might be targets of Iranian retaliation should Israel and/or America attack the nuclear program. The United States also worries that its deployed forces in the Middle East are possible targets, and that Iran’s support for international terrorists and murder-for-hire criminal efforts might also be expanded. Israel need not speculate. Tehran and its terrorist proxies, particularly Hezbollah, will try to strike Israel, in whatever way they can.

But assessing possible Iranian retaliation means more than simply listing measures the ayatollahs can take. So doing affords all manner of possible threats a level of credibility that only plays into Iran’s hands. Right now, Iran is in its weakest geostrategic position since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Its terrorist surrogates Hamans and Hezbollah have been battered, if not yet fully destroyed; Syria’s Assad regime has fallen; the Houthis are at least damaged; and Iran itself has sustained catastrophic losses to ballistic-missile production facilities and some damage to its nuclear program.

Is a country already in such dire straits really prepared to add as many as four-to-six new enemies, risking the survival of the regime itself, which is already under enormous threat internally and externally? In short, Iran’s threats sound decidedly hollow. In any case, American and Gulf Arab interests coincide, arguing for Washington to meld both its defensive and its deterrence strategies against Iran with interested GCC members, and legitimate for Gulf Arabs to be included in US protective measures for military forces in their territories.

Many believe Israel will not act decisively against Iran’s nuclear program without explicit US approval. This is incorrect. As a geographically small nation, like Singapore and most GCC states, Israel knows that nuclear weapons are an existential threat: just a few nuclear detonations, and there is no more Israel. Jerusalem acted without Washington’s blessing against Iraq in 2001; Iran and Syria in 2007; and against one facility of Tehran’s nuclear-weapons enterprise (never inspected by the IAEA) at the Parchin military base in 2024. Faced with Iran’s existential threat, Israel will do what it must, Bibi Netanyahu in particular understands the American saying, “better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.” And if the Israelis fail to act, they will have only themselves to blame.

This article was first published in The Independant Arabia on June 11, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

What is required of Sharia to obtain full American recognition

May 26, 2025

Donald Trump’s just-concluded Middle East visit produced considerable press coverage for the business deals and investments he and his counterparts announced. The visit’s biggest news, however, was his declaration that the United States would lift economic sanctions on Syria imposed during the Assad regime. Trump said in Riyadh(https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-starts-gulf-visit-seeking-big-economic-deals-2025-05-13/), “Oh what I do for the crown prince [Mohammed bin Salman].”

Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, even received a brief meeting with Trump in Riyadh(https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/middleeast/syria-trump-meeting-analysis-intl). In 2013, America had named(https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/05/209499.htm) Al-Sharaa, under his nom de guerre Mohammed al-Jawlani, a “specially designated global terrorist,” and put a $10 million bounty on his head. The US had previously listed his terrorist group, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, once known as the Al Nusrah Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate, as a foreign terrorist organization.

American presidents don’t normally meet with terrorists, but al-Sharaa obviously received good public-relations advice after taking power: he abandoned his nom de guerre, trimmed his beard, and traded his combat fatigues for a suit and tie, looking more like a businessman than a terrorist. But have Al Sharaa and HTS truly renounced terrorism?

Trump didn’t wait to find out. To be sure, Trump advised al-Sharaa during their meeting to sign an Abraham Accord recognizing Israel, expel foreign terrorist fighters from Syria, and join the fight against ISIS. But Al-Sharaa made no apparent commitment to do so, certainly not publicly. This is hardly “the art of the deal” at its finest.

Saudi Arabia’s interests, and those of the broader Arab world, in accepting al-Sharaa’s new government are clear. Assad’s fall was a massive defeat for Iran, losing its most important regional ally and cutting off land supply routes to Hezbollah, Iran’s principal terrorist proxy. Moving to restrict Turkish President Erdogan’s influence in Syria was also important, since HTS could not have overthrown Assad without Ankara’s considerable assistance.

Defeating Tehran’s mullahs and restraining Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman influence in Syria and the Middle East generally are also in America’s interest. But these objectives are not enough. Washington needs more than rhetoric from al-Sharaa, it needs performance of concrete actions proving he has abandoned terrorism in fact not just in talk. Trump let the moment slip when he should have insisted on America’s conditions to lift sanctions, but the designations of al-Sharaa and HTS as terrorists, and Syria’s Assad-era designation as a state sponsor of terrorism remain in effect. These listings should not be rescinded unless and until al-Sharaa’s regime meets several further conditions, enumerated below. Moreover, if it fails to do so promptly, sanctions should be reimposed.

Most importantly, al-Sharaa must permanently reverse Assad policies that led to Syria’s ostracization, and be completely transparent with the Assad’s government’s archives and related materials. Since non-terrorist governments do not take hostages, al-Sharaa should open Syria’s government records to international review on all aspects of foreign hostages seized over the past decades. For the hostage families’ sake, their stories must be told fully, and any Syrian links with foreign entities assisting the hostage-taking must be disclosed to law-enforcement agencies for appropriate follow-up.

There must also be a clean break from all Assad regime efforts in chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, particularly ties with governments like Iran. After Assad’s fall, Israel reportedly bombed suspected chemical-weapons facilities, but al-Sharaa should nonetheless identify all chemical-weapons-related sites in Syria, and open these locations and government files to inspection either by Washington or the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Comparable steps need to be taken regarding biological weapons.

Syria’s nuclear activities likely centered on the nuclear reactor, which it aided Iran and North Korea in building at Deir al-Zour. Syrian records on Deir al-Zour and other links with Iran could prove invaluable in countering Tehran’s regional threat. Syria should take every step to preserve this evidence and make it available for international review. Al-Sharaa should also abandon support for Iran’s efforts to dominate Lebanon through Hezbollah.

Moreover, if al-Sharaa has indeed renounced terrorism, he needs to fully disclose Al Nusrah’s funders over the years. He should commit to working with the Kurds, particularly the Syrian Democratic Forces, in securely confining their thousands of ISIS prisoners. Other terrorists in Syria should be imprisoned there, not expelled, as Trump suggested, possibly to return to terrorism elsewhere. Signs of possible Turkish reconciliation with its own Kurdish citizens do not prove that Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman ambitions regarding Kurdish-populated areas in Syria and elsewhere have diminished. Accordingly, US forces need to remain in northeastern Syria until HTS’s good faith is fully proven.

Finally, Syria should expel Russia from its naval station at Tartus and air base at nearby Hmeimim. Russia’s 2022 unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, not to mention its long-time support for Assad, prove how dangerous an extensive Russian military presence in Syria is

In short, Al-Sharaa has a long way to go before he and his HTS regime deserve full recognition and legitimacy from the United States. This “deal” is not yet done.

This article was first published in The Independent Arabia on May 19, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Starmer’s turn against Israel will prolong war

May 26, 2025

Removing the ayatollahs in Iran is the only route to securing longterm peace in Gaza

Israel is now grappling with possibly the last phases of eliminating the Hamas terrorist threat. Instead of support from a unified West determined to extirpate terrorism, however, Jerusalem is under attack for attempting exactly that. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “horrified” by Israel’s recent “escalation”. Foreign Secretary David Lammy condemned the “dark new phase in this conflict,” suspended trade negotiations with Israel, and said it should agree to a cease-fire to free remaining hostages, as if that were Jerusalem’s only legitimate objective.

Last week, a gunman in Washington brutally murdered two Israeli embassy employees, chanting “free, free Palestine” while being arrested. Thereafter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Starmer and others were “on the wrong side” of justice, humanity and history. Starmer has not responded. Before he does, he should at least check the history.

Immediately after Hamas’s barbaric October 7, 2023, invasion, Netanyahu declared that Israel would seek Hamas’s political and military destruction. This was an entirely legitimate exercise of UN Charter Article 51, which affirms “the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense.”

Jerusalem was not limited to a “proportional” response, something comparable to the Hamas terrorist attack, any more than America was limited to a “proportional” response to Pearl Harbor. States are entitled not merely to repel threats, but to destroy them, as the allies did to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

Moreover, clear from the outset and becoming clearer by the day as new information emerges, Hamas’s attack was part of Iran’s “ring of fire strategy” against Israel, a strategy implemented by the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Just to remind, “Quds” is an Arabic term for Jerusalem, celebrated on Ramadan’s last day by Palestinians as “Quds Day.” Implementing its “ring” strategy, Tehran created or fostered a chain of terrorist groups: Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shia militias in Iraq. Bashar al-Assad’s Syria was a key ally.

The anti-Israel strategy unfolded across the Middle East immediately after October 7. From the beginning, Israel saw Gaza as part of a wider war, not merely a discrete conflict. Now far more evident than at the outset, however, is the war’s economic dimension, a critical factor long before October 7.

Iran and other regional states, groups and individuals provided billions of dollars, directly and through international agencies like UNRWA, ostensibly for humanitarian aid. Tragically, however, as we now know, Hamas diverted much of these “humanitarian” resources to build Gaza’s underground fortress of tunnel networks; armed itself to the hilt (including with missile arsenals capable of menacing all Israel); and effectively mobilised most Gazans to serve as human shields for that fortress. If Hamas kept adequate records that can be recovered, the story will embarrass those who enabled this massive fraud, particularly in the West.

Meanwhile, Jerusalem is pursuing its post-October 7 goals, which must include eliminating all potential assets, in cash or in kind, Hamas can use to retain control over Gaza’s population. Working through UNRWA over decades, Hamas seized control over the distribution of virtually all humanitarian supplies entering Gaza. Credible reports (and Hamas records, if recovered) demonstrate how the terrorists rewarded their cadres at the expense of others, using control over the internal distribution of supplies in Gaza to cement their political control.

This pattern is nothing new. After the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein used the UN’s “Oil for Food” programme to gain control over Iraq’s population. As originally conceived, an intrusive UN presence would use Iraq’s oil revenues for humanitarian aid to its people, thus ensuring the non-political delivery of assistance to the truly needy, while also demonstrating to Iraqis that Saddam had effectively lost control of his country. He repeatedly rejected this model, until the Clinton administration conceded that his regime would disburse Oil-for-Food aid. That mistake helped Saddam reinforce his authoritarian grip, repress Kurds and other dissidents, and again threaten his neighbours,

Hamas has thus simply been following Saddam’s plan. Israel, by contrast, has followed principles Herbert Hoover first articulated in World War I when he organised relief programs in Europe, starting in Belgium. Hoover ordered that no aid would go to combatants, and that his volunteers would distribute the aid, or at least rigorously monitor delivery to prevent diversion to combatants.

Hamas scorned Hoover’s principles, and continues to do so. Comments by Starmer, Lammy and others ignore both the reality in Gaza today and Hoover’s wise admonitions about ensuring that relief goes to those who actually need it, not those who use the aid to oppress them.

Israel has a plan to aid Gazans, backed by Washington but opposed by the UN. Instead of criticising Israel, Starmer should support and help perfect Jerusalem’s plan and thereby properly deliver humanitarian assistance.

The only way Gazans can ever be free is to eliminate the curse of Hamas. And because Gaza is part of Iran’s larger war against Israel and the West, that will happen only when Iranians are free of the ayatollahs. That should be our common goal.

This article was first published in The Daily Telegraph on May 26, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Will Trump Blow Up the National Security Council?

May 19, 2025

President Trump is reportedly considering(https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/rubio-working-major-changes-national-security-council-rcna206658) major alterations to the National Security Advisor’s role and the National Security Council staff. One administration source said(https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/politics/rubio-national-security-council-overhaul) the “NSC as we know it is done.” The potential changes center apparently on reducing the staff and its responsibility for developing and coordinating policy formulation, particularly long-range policy, and making it an implementer of Mr. Trump’s directives.

If executed, such changes will affect not merely the staff, but the NSC process itself. Ignoring history’s lessons, reflecting instead Mr. Trump’s aversion to coherent strategy and policy, the proposals would seriously harm both the administration’s already haphazard decision-making process and the president’s ability to manage the enormous foreign-policy, defense, intelligence, and homeland-security bureaucracies. The ultimately critical factor in presidential national-security strategy is judgment, but a properly functioning NSC staff can help provide the necessary information and options foundational to the sound exercise of judgment.

The 1947 National Security Act established the NSC to help presidents get their arms around the new and enlarged departments and agencies required to cope with a complex, menacing international environment, the likes of which we had never before experienced. Because presidents differ in their work habits, the NSC structure was intended to be flexible, varying in size and shape over time. But through often painful lessons in recent decades, until Trump 47, a broad consensus formed over an optimal approach.

Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to pay real attention to NSC staffing, which he structured along lines comparable to his military experience. John Kennedy rebelled against what he saw as excessive rigidity, at least until the Bay of Pigs, the discouraging and intimidating 1961 Vienna summit with Nikita Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis convinced him that structure wasn’t so bad after all.

The personalized National Security Advisor roles of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brezinski in the Nixon/Ford and Carter administration respectively have received enormous attention, but, in between, Brent Scowcroft was building the current NSC model. Scowcroft would perfect the model under George H.W. Bush, confronting Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the Soviet Union’s collapse, and the start of the post-Cold War era.

Scowcroft devised a system to coordinate and control the flow of decision-making, topped by Cabinet-level NSC meetings chaired by the President; “principals” meetings, also cabinet-level, led by National Security Advisors; “deputies” meetings attended by deputy- and undersecretary-level officials; down to meetings of assistant and even deputy assistant secretaries. Some describe this five-tiered edifice as too bureaucratic, but Bush 41 and others proved it could move as fast and comprehensively as exigent circumstances warranted.

The plan embodied the principal of subsidiarity, with decisions made at the lowest level achievable, with only the most important issues occupying the attention of the president and his top advisors. This system’s substantive outcome was providing the ultimate decision makers with all the pertinent data, the full range of available options, the pros and cons of each, and forward thinking about implementation, counter-moves by adversaries and allies, and possible US responses.

To Scowcroft also goes considerable credit for repairing the NSC after the Iran-Contra crisis, its worst mistake, during which NSC staff became operational. Since then, almost all agree the NSC should coordinate, and implementing departments and agencies should implement. Not all have adhered perfectly to this maxim.

Importantly, the size of the NSC staff is solely a dependent variable. Size follows mission. Setting a staff level before deciding its tasks is backwards. Moreover, comparing current staff levels to prior administrations is inapposite for several reasons. In bygone days, only “professionals,” not “administrative” staff, were counted; Situation Room staffers were sometimes included in NSC numbers, sometimes not; and, pre-9/11, there were almost no “homeland security” staff anywhere in the White House.

On the president personally, Scowcroft ‘s model bestowed one key advantage: creating interagency staff contacts reaching into deep bureaucratic depths gave far greater insight into potential agency agendas and disagreements before they rose to higher levels, thereby reducing the risks of bureaucratic obfuscation and delay. Similarly, presidents today have significantly enhanced capabilities to monitor how their decisions are implemented down below in the operating agencies. A dramatically constrained NSC staff would simply not have such abilities.

Everyone knows presidents make the ultimate decisions. But will they make the best-informed decisions, in widely varying contexts, or will they merely follow their own neuron flashes? The animus now directed at Scowcroft’s system largely emanates from fear of the bureaucracy (“deep state”’ to Trump acolytes). The real question is whether top decision-makers will run the bureaucracy or whether the bureaucracy runs them. If the highest levels fail to drive lower levels, the fault lies more with inadequate top officials who lack knowledge, experience, and resolve.

The NSC system has its faults, but turning its staff into liege-men and -women will not benefit America, or even Donald Trump.

This article was first published in Wall Street Journal on May 19, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

John Bolton: ‘The term chaos is commonly used to describe the top of the Defense Department’

May 07, 2025

The Signal chat group created by US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to discuss imminent strikes targeting Houthi terrorists in Yemen in March ultimately cost him his job. Waltz’s misjudgment exposed the Trump administration to substantial domestic political criticism at a difficult time and shocked friends and allies of the United States worldwide.

Other errors in judgment continue to be made. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth created his own Signal group chat to discuss the operation in Yemen with, among others, friends and family. Hegseth compounded his mistake by installing Signal on his office computer, demonstrating that he had learned nothing from Waltz’s initial mistake.

Hegseth is familiar with controversies. He has been criticized for inviting or wanting to invite Elon Musk to the Pentagon to inform him of US military plans in the event of a war with China. It is possible that Trump himself canceled this ill-advised meeting.

An outrageously simplistic vision

This episode, combined with other troubles, led to the resignation or firing of five of Hegseth’s aides, whom he had just hired. Hegseth was so concerned by the press leaks that he threatened to subject several high-ranking military officers to a lie detector test, including the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The term “chaos” is now commonly used to describe what is happening at the top of the Defense Department.

Failures to protect sensitive information and in making critical diplomatic and military decisions exemplify the most severe problems of Trump’s second term. He and most of his senior advisers do not take national security seriously enough.

Trump does not concern himself with political philosophy, grand strategy, or even “policy” as we usually understand the term. His world consists of transactions, one after another, with no connection or relation between them, implemented as if the consequences of one such transaction would not affect the others. This may be the world that Manhattan real estate operates in, which Trump proclaims he has been successful in, but it is no way to run the US government.

Trump sees international affairs as little more than his personal relationships with foreign leaders. In his mind, if he has a good relationship with Vladimir Putin, then the United States and Russia have good relations as states. The reverse is also true. Some readers will undoubtedly be put off by such an incredibly simplistic view of global affairs, but this is indeed Trump’s view, which applies to Chinese President Xi Jinping as well as his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-un.

How, under these conditions, does Trump deal with “Biden’s war” in Ukraine, which he has consistently said would never have happened had he been president? By sending a close friend, Steve Witkoff – another New York real estate negotiation professional – to meet with Putin, which he has done four times since Trump’s inauguration. Witkoff knows little or nothing about Russia, Ukraine or NATO, but he meets with Putin alone for several hours. The result is a draft agreement so adverse to Western interests, and especially those of Ukraine, that the Kremlin could have written it.

An agreement, period

Neither Washington nor Moscow has officially confirmed the details of the negotiations between Putin and Witkoff, but they reportedly include considerable concessions to Russia, hinted at by JD Vance during the 2024 presidential campaign.

The tentative US plans involve surrendering, at least de facto, all Ukrainian territory Russia currently holds (and perhaps recognizing Moscow’s sovereignty over Crimea) and barring future Ukrainian NATO membership and security guarantees. In Trump’s eyes, these concessions have no impact on the US, and if they trouble European nations, it’s their problem. Trump wants a deal, period.

The recently concluded US-Ukraine minerals deal does not fundamentally change this equation. Ukraine does gain some political advantage from the deal, and any prospect of investment that facilitates reconstruction is welcome, but Russia will not be impressed. Trump’s casual approach to unprovoked Russian aggression, twice in the last 11 years, is simply not the way to repel grave threats to US and Western security.

But this is also true of Trump’s approach to Iran. Having rightly withdrawn from Obama’s ill-advised 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, Trump failed to apply his rhetoric about “maximum pressure” effectively, and the ayatollahs remain in power in Tehran. Currently, his friend Witkoff is negotiating an agreement remarkably similar to the failed 2015 effort.

Witkoff, unsurprisingly, knows nothing about Iran, nuclear weapons, arms control and nonproliferation. On the Iran issue, however, there is apparently real disagreement within Trump’s administration over Witkoff’s uninformed exchanges with Iranians.

Damage control

Many Europeans have taken Trump’s chaotic approach to national security as an opportunity to lay the foundations for a post-American Europe. This would be a serious strategic mistake, undermining chances for a measurable upswing in NATO’s combined political-military capabilities.

The West generally badly misread the Soviet Union’s collapse as effectively reflecting the end of major geopolitical threats, some called it “the end of history.” Defense budgets were slashed dramatically (the so-called “peace dividend”) and have not yet recovered. At least before Trump, Washington had done more to rebound from this illusion than its allies, better understanding the dangers posed by the deepening Chinese-Russian axis, which comes complete with outriders like North Korea, Iran and Belarus, among others.

The threat posed by the Beijing-Moscow alliance will persist for decades if we do not respond effectively. Let us keep in mind that Trump has just under 45 months left. Planning the future as if he were a permanent fixture is as illusory as his attempts to reach an agreement with Russia and Iran. Serious defenders of Western security will instead strive to mitigate his casualness and ignorance of important issues by working to limit the additional damage he could inflict on NATO and international trade before beginning to lay the foundations for a post-Trump world. It can’t come soon enough.

This article was first published in Le Monde on May 6, 2025. Click here to read the original article.

Chaos Is Embedded in Trump’s DNA

May 06, 2025

His pinball-machine style hinges on his advisers’ personal fealty. This will mean more trouble ahead.

Donald Trump’s chaotic national-security governance is in full flood. Whether it’s risking American military operations, making volatile, highly dubious tariff decisions, hiring uninformed senior advisers, or seeing senior government officials dissenting from presidential decisions, the disarray is palpable and likely to spread. It did Thursday, with the ouster of national security adviser Mike Waltz. It doesn’t have to be this way. Not in my experience have emojis been deployed as they were during the inexplicable group chat on Signal. For Mr. Trump, however, chaos is embedded in his DNA and endemic in his team. Consider the recent evidence.

Open debate before a presidential decision is normal and productive. Questioning decisions afterward, even doubting the boss’s judgment, is something else, but apparently not to JD Vance on whether to strike the Houthis: “I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now.” Weeks later, Mr. Vance hied himself off to Greenland to denounce Denmark’s administration of that Trump-coveted island. Denmark’s foreign minister metaphorically slapped the administration’s wrist, emphasizing correctly that this is no way to treat close allies. Even congressional Republicans now see the Vance style as a problem. If he gives similar speeches about China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, perhaps we could rest easier.

Mr. Trump’s chaotic management is exemplified by his friend Steve Witkoff, whose portfolio began with Gaza hostages and then absorbed the entire Middle East, including Iran’s nuclear-weapons program and the highest-level U.S. negotiations with senior Iranian officials in years. It expanded to the Russia-Ukraine war, on which Mr. Witkoff meets alone with Vladimir Putin, and now includes crushing the Houthis. Shadow secretary of state? Not bad for someone without diplomatic experience.

Mr. Witkoff has no evident expertise in Russia, Eastern Europe (especially Ukraine), the Middle East, Iran, state-to-state negotiations, nuclear-weapons technology, weapons-of-mass-destruction proliferation, verification of international agreements, or armed conflict. His Ukraine cease-fire work verges on collapse. He acts at Mr. Trump’s direct behest, and his connection to Secretary of State Marco Rubio is unclear. Mr. Witkoff’s access could be ideal to introduce Mr. Trump to reality, but both men succumb all too readily to Russian propaganda, as these pages have shown.

This article was first published in the Wall Street Journal on May 2, 2025. Click here to read the rest of the article.

Securing America’s Interests In a Challenging World

Category: News