Trump Faces a Muddled War and Unpalatable Options

“Just two weeks ago, opening the Great American State Fair, President Trump triumphantly declared: ‘For the first time in 3,000 years, we are going to have peace in the Middle East.’,” the New York Times reports.

“It was typical bravado for Mr. Trump. But the ‘peace’ he was celebrating — the cease-fire with Iran that on Wednesday he declared ‘over’ after less than a month — was already beginning to unravel…”

“Now Mr. Trump appears to be confronting the consequences of his haste, and of his assumption, born of his time in the real estate business, that his adversary would prize economic benefits over the revolutionary ideology that has driven its politics since the 1979 Iranian revolution. That has left him facing a range of unpalatable options amid seemingly intractable sticking points over the fate of Iran’s nuclear program — to say nothing of its missile program, its support for terrorist groups and its repression of its own people.”