Old and busted: Maximum pressure. New hotness: Maximum heat?
Welcome to the dark side of Israel’s stunning victories in the Middle East over the past three months. By destroying Hezbollah, Benjamin Netanyahu kicked out the only strut holding up Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Now that Assad has fallen, so has Iran’s “Shiite Crescent” and their encirclement strategy in the region, aimed not just at Israel but also the Sunni Arab states. All of that is good news, of course, as Iran suddenly finds itself naked before the world.
The bad news? Iran has more incentive than ever to cloak itself in nuclear weapons, and they’re close to stitching a few together, too. Either the Israelis or the West have to figure out a way to stop the Iranians or at least providing enough disincentives to get them to quit playing with fire. And that has Donald Trump considering pre-emptive…
