“After moving to the precipice of military action against Iran, President Trump finds himself caught between negotiations that show few signs of yielding a nuclear deal and a war he is reluctant to join,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“By deferring a decision on a military strike, Trump’s calculation is that Israel’s continued blows against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure or Tehran’s capitulation at the negotiating table might deliver the outcome he has long sought: an end to Iran’s uranium enrichment.”

“The risk is that Iran concludes that Trump is bluffing, opts to endure Israel’s bombs and clings to its longstanding position that it has the right to an enrichment program.”

“Israel’s top general warned on Friday that the war with Iran could be lengthy, calling it the most complex military campaign in the country’s history,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“He spoke as European foreign ministers met Iranian officials in Geneva on Friday to press them to de-escalate and limit Tehran’s nuclear activities. Iran’s foreign minister said as the talks began that Israel’s attacks he described as ‘merciless acts of aggression’ had undermined constructive negotiations.”

New York Times: “The longer Israel waits for Mr. Trump, the greater the strain on its air defense system. To keep out Iran’s ballistic missile barrages, Israel is burning through its stocks of missile interceptors, forcing it to prioritize the protection of some areas over others. As time goes on, that raises the risk of more missiles hitting both civilian neighborhoods and strategic security sites.”

“With Israel’s airspace closed and much of its economic life suspended, the war’s protraction will also come at an economic cost. The sooner the war ends, the faster commercial flights will return and businesses can resume full operations.”

“Rather than wait for American help, Israel could decide to attack Fordo alone — taking a chance with the planes and munitions it has at its disposal. Some analysts say that Israel could even send commandos to enter and sabotage the site.”

“Iran sent a barrage of missiles into Israel on Friday that struck in several places,” the New York Times reports.

“Both sides traded fire even as European ministers were meeting with Iran’s top diplomat in Switzerland to try to cool the week-old conflict. Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said Tehran was not interested in negotiating an end to the war until Israel stopped its attacks.”

The Economist: “Iran’s regime is often described as decaying, corrupt, bankrupt and despised by its citizens. Is it about to collapse? Israel’s shock-and-awe campaign continues relentlessly: on June 16th it said it had ‘full air supremacy over Tehran’. On June 17th President Donald Trump called for Tehran to ‘immediately evacuate’ and cars have already been streaming out of the city in recent days. Its shops are shuttered. On social media some Iranians have celebrated the assassination of their generals with emojis of barbequed meat.”

“The humiliation illuminates the failure of the regime’s military strategy and, some hope, may trigger an uprising or a coup d’état, in turn creating chaos or national renewal. Yet Iran’s default is to defy its aggressors, not to capitulate. And an extended war with large civilian casualties could act to rally public opinion in an intensely nationalistic country, allowing the regime to survive and redouble its efforts to race for a bomb.”

Richard Haass: “There is no easy option without downsides. The best course of action for Trump now would be to give Iran one last chance to accept a diplomatic deal. Such a proposal would require that Iran agree to hand over all of its enriched uranium, dismantle centrifuges and other known elements of its nuclear programme, and agree to open-ended inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

“Such an offer would include relief for Iran from economic sanctions, a withdrawal of the US threat to attack, a larger ceasefire and some face-saving mechanism by which Iran could participate in a regional uranium enrichment consortium tied to the generation of nuclear energy, not weapons.”

“Iran might accept it. After all, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini reluctantly agreed to an end to the war with Iraq in 1988 to save the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic into existence. Khomeini compared making this decision to drinking poison.”

William Kristol: “The fact is, for all the talk about rejecting ‘globalists,’ the experience of the Trump administration is one of intervening, repeatedly, in global affairs. There is no Fortress America possible in the 21st century. ‘America First’ is dead, if it ever really existed.”