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.”

The latest Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll finds President Trump’s approval on foreign policy sits at 39% to 53%.

G. Elliot Morris: “If the news agenda shifts to covering Trump on foreign policy, voters will be reminded of a policy agenda they rate him very poorly on.”

“And any backlash would intensify even more if the president does involve the U.S. in Iran — which a supermajority of Americans oppose, per YouGov.”

And this is why you can expect Trump to focus soon on immigration, which is his strongest issue.

“Russia is on the verge of a recession, its economy minister said on Thursday, the first public admission that the country’s war economy is starting to cool three years after President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” the Financial Times reports.

“World leaders accelerated diplomatic efforts on Friday to end the Israel-Iran war, as Iran’s top diplomat prepared to meet in Switzerland with senior European counterparts, and President Trump raised hopes of a truce,” the New York Times reports.

“The renewed diplomatic push came as the sides continued to trade fire. Israel announced overnight strikes on missile factories and a research center linked to Iran’s nuclear program, and Iran fired a ballistic missile early on Friday that damaged a residential street in southern Israel.”