Trump Foreign Policy
May 7, 2026 — Scott Johnson
It’s a challenge to ascertain the state of play in our conflict with Iran, let alone the ultimate demands of the Trump administration to resolve it. Today’s Wall Street Journal carries an editorial that in part reports on the administration’s demands. From its discussions with senior officials, the Journal editors articulate the U.S. red lines in talks to resolve the conflict as follows: The U.S. says it needs Iran’s attestation
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May 6, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a talented and engaging gentleman. He is also a man of many parts. In this respect, he reminds me of the late Minnesota Twins utility player César Tovar. Tovar played all nine positions in a single game on September 22, 1968, against the Oakland A’s. Tovar was only the second player in Major League Baseball history to achieve this feat. He pitched a scoreless
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May 3, 2026 — John Hinderaker
Our friend Roger Kimball, an optimist, describes the Last Days of the Iranian Regime. As Roger argues, the regime’s condition is indeed dire: The war is over. If this were a novel, we’d be in epilogue territory where we tie up some loose threads in the plot and learn about the fates of various characters. *** The naval blockade, which interdicts shipping to and from Iranian ports, is costing the
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April 28, 2026 — Scott Johnson
The Washington Free Beacon’s Ira Stoll treats Wendy Sherman’s deep thoughts on Iran in his biting column “Obama-Biden Iran Negotiator Says Trump Doesn’t Have Enough Experts, Bemoans ‘Genocide.’” Sherman of course served as the Obama administration State Departmet official who led the negotiations with Iran resulting in the 2015 giveaway known as the JCPOA. Sherman thought her background in social work perfectly prepared her for the job. The JCPOA that
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April 25, 2026 — John Hinderaker
The New York Times trumpets: “Disapproval of Trump Hits Highest Level of His Second Term,” at 58%. It isn’t hard to see why. Rasmussen finds that “less than half of American voters view the six-week military campaign against the Tehran regime as successful.” The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 42% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the war against Iran has been successful, including 24% who
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April 23, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Vivek Ramaswamy is running as a Republican candidate for governor of Ohio. He was the featured speaker at a TPUSA event hosted at the Ohio State University’s Mershon Auditorium this past Tuesday evening. The argumentative NPR News story on his appearance makes him sound like an impressive candidate to me. Among other subjects, he fielded a scripted question on American support of Israel. The question harks back to his 2024
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April 22, 2026 — John Hinderaker
The New York Times looks into what has happened to USAID employees since that agency was shuttered, and gets out the violin: [Amy Uccello] was fired by email while on maternity leave, given 24 hours to clear out her desk and left with three days of health insurance and no severance pay. She had worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development or related groups for more than two decades.
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April 21, 2026 — John Hinderaker
President Trump announced today that he is extending the ceasefire in Iran to give that country’s government–“government”–an opportunity to take a unified position: President Donald Trump on Tuesday extended the two-week U.S. ceasefire with Iran, saying the extension was warranted due to Tehran’s government being “seriously fractured.” Trump said the ceasefire, which he earlier had said would end on Wednesday, would continue “until such time as” Iran’s leaders and representatives
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April 21, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss draws attention to a post by Senator Chris Murphy yesterday on X. In the post Murphy appears to cheer on the unconfirmed report that more than two dozen Iranian ships evaded our blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Perhaps he was being sarcastic. It’s hard to tell. He certainly opposes our efforts to throttle the Iranian regime. awesome https://t.co/nRj1trI3rF — Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) April 20,
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April 17, 2026 — John Hinderaker
…and President Trump says a deal with Iran is at hand: Iran has opened the Strait of Hormuz to all commercial vessels, its foreign minister has announced. Abbas Araghchi said that the key oil artery would be “completely open” for the remaining period of the ceasefire in Lebanon, which expires on April 26. In response, Donald Trump thanked the Islamic Republic, but insisted the US navy blockade of ships entering
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April 16, 2026 — Scott Johnson
RealClearPolitics has flagged this X post by Jesús Enrique Rosas by including it in its lineup this morning. It is necessary and clarifying. Last week the pope met with former Obama strategist David Axelrod. CBS News reported that the meeting took place this past Thursday. No one said anything about what went down at the meeting. Axelrod’s memoir, by the way, is entitled Believer. The reference is not to religion.
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April 16, 2026 — Scott Johnson
The State Department hosted a meeting earlier this week with the participation of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Counselor Michael Needham, United States Ambassador to Lebanon Michael Issa, Ambassador of Israel to the United States Yechiel Leiter, and Ambassador of Lebanon to the United States Nada Hamadeh Moawad. This meeting marked the first major high-level engagement between the governments of Israel and Lebanon since 1993. Can’t we all just get
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April 15, 2026 — Scott Johnson
Michael Doran’s Tablet essay “Seven myths about the Iran war” has rotated off our Picks, but it remains must reading. It is difficult to excerpt. This comes from Doran’s introductory remarks: * * * * * Donald Trump’s actions in the Middle East continually surprise the foreign-policy establishment and the media elite. According to commentators on both the right and the left, the reason is that Trump is a megalomaniac—or,
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April 12, 2026 — John Hinderaker
Centcom has clarified exactly what our naval forces will do, beginning tomorrow evening: So we aren’t closing the Strait, we are blockading Iranian ports. This means that Iran won’t be able to sell any oil. Two countries will be hurt: Iran and China, which buys 80% of Iranian oil. The Gulf States will be able to ship their oil through the Strait as soon as they choose to do so.
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April 12, 2026 — Scott Johnson
The Obama/Biden administrations are like the clown car in the circus. In this case an endless supply of horrors emanates from inside the compact and the clowns would be akin to the clowns in the horror movie subgenre. They are a humiliating nightmare. Marco Rubio announces the imminent deportation of the latest Killer Klown — the family of Masoumeh Ebtekar, a/k/a Screaming Mary. This is the full text of Secretary
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April 12, 2026 — Scott Johnson
The news of the morning is that Vice President Vance’s negotiations with a large delegation from Iran have terminated after 21 hours without an agreement. The public word is that Iran said no to no nukes and that was the sticking point. The style of the Iranian regime is to keep these things going indefinitly and then lie about compliance with the regime’s obligations. Lying is the law. We need
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April 11, 2026 — John Hinderaker
The U.S./Israeli attack on the mullahs’ regime in Iran has been an extraordinary success. The Trump administration laid out the mission’s objectives clearly from the beginning, and they have been achieved: Iran’s evil leadership is mostly dead, and Iran’s military has been devastated, as has its industrial capacity to replace that military. Iran’s navy and Air Force no longer exist. These are the objectives that the Trump and Netanyahu administrations
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