Hussein Srour carries a gardening hose across the wreckage of his hometown, Tayr Harfa, a predominantly Shiite village in Southern Lebanon, just 12 miles north of the Israeli border. The 67-year-old steps over collapsed roofs, missile shells, and the bones of his dead neighbors. He pulls the hose toward the one part of his home that survived: an avocado tree. As he begins to water it, an Israeli drone spots him and tracks his every move. 

“Yes, I get scared,” Srour told me. “But this is not just some land or some house. This is everything to me.”

For the second time in his life, Israel Defense Forces destroyed Srour’s home. They killed his father during an invasion of his village in 1978, before bombing his house in 1984. Years later, Srour rebuilt on the plot—only for Israel to reduce it to rubble again earlier this year.

The strikes that flattened his home were part of Israel’s campaign to weaken Hezbollah—the Iranian-backed group that has long been Lebanon’s most powerful political and military force and has lobbed missiles into Israel for the past four decades, ramping up its fusillades after Hamas’s October 7 massacre of Israeli civilians. Hezbollah’s power and endurance doesn’t just come from Iran’s money or bitterness over Israel’s wars. It’s empowered by a corrupt Lebanese state, leaving its citizens to fend for themselves.

“The Lebanese government is weak—it is a lame duck,” says Hilal Khashan, professor of political science at the American University of Beirut. “Israel made it very clear to the Lebanese government: If you are unable to disarm Hezbollah, we will do it ourselves.”

“Before Trump’s policy in the Middle East can succeed, all armed forces or groups against Israel must be eliminated,” says Khashan. “That’s why the U.S. has already given Israel the green light to deal with Hezbollah when it wants to.”

Now that Gaza is under a ceasefire, Khashan believes Israel will shift its full focus to Hezbollah, which could ignite another major war in Lebanon. Indeed, Israeli jets have pummeled Lebanon this autumn.

If Lebanon’s government could disarm Hezbollah itself, that might not be the case. But until leaders embrace reform—and put the nation above their sects—Lebanon will remain something close to a failed state.

Seeds of Dysfunction

Lebanon’s political dysfunction began long before the latest war. In 1989, Lebanese warlords signed the Taif Agreement—designed to end the country’s 15-year civil war by dividing power among its sects: The president would always be Maronite Catholic, the prime minister Sunni Muslim, and the parliament speaker Shiite.

In practice, the deal only entrenched the same elites who had reigned during  the conflict. For decades, they enriched themselves while driving the country toward one of the worst financial collapses in modern history. By 2019, Lebanon’s economy officially imploded. The currency has lost more than 98 percent of its value. Poverty has more than tripled over the past decade, according to the World Bank. Financial institutions are collapsing, bank accounts are frozen, educated professionals can’t afford groceries, and public employees go unpaid for months.

As the economy crumbled, Hezbollah and the political class propped each other up. The militant Shia group shielded Lebanon’s leaders in exchange for political cover; in return, those leaders defended Hezbollah’s weapons in the name of “resistance” against Israel, even as the country disintegrated.

The Lebanese people have tried to stand up for themselves. During the 2019 collapse, millions poured onto the streets to demand an end to corruption. Leaders promised reforms. But they delivered almost nothing. Then came the Beirut Blast. On August 4, 2020, a massive explosion ripped through Lebanon’s capital—killing 218 people, injuring more than 6,000, and causing billions of dollars in damages. It was caused by 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that the government allowed to be haphazardly stored at the Beirut port.

More than five years later, no Lebanese official has been charged. And when new crises hit—like Israel and Hezbollah’s war—the state is nowhere to be found.

A War Without a State

When Hamas unleashed the brutal carnage of October 7, 2023, Hezbollah pulled Lebanon into the fight almost immediately. One day after Hamas’s attacks, the group fired rockets from Lebanon’s southern border into Israel, declaring solidarity with the Palestinians. Lebanon quickly became a second front, as thousands of Israelis fled their homes in the northern part of their country.

And Israel struck back, hard. Airstrikes have pounded southern Lebanon for nearly two years, killing more than 4,000 people, injuring 16,000, and displacing over a million, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel succeeded in killing Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, but the organization endures; it is entrenched in parliament, running schools and hospitals, rebuilding with Iran’s help.

Hezbollah’s survival is about more than weapons. It endures because millions of Shia Lebanese still see it as the only protector in a country that long ago stopped protecting anyone.

Desperate Lebanese Turn to Hezbollah

When Ahmad Zein Eddine found out his friend was killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon last year, his first feeling wasn’t grief. It was anxiety.

He couldn’t sleep. One question looped endlessly in his mind: Who’s next?

The 34-year-old, whose green eyes peer out from behind black-rimmed glasses, is from Majdal Selem, a predominantly Shiite town in southern Lebanon. He’s lost count of how many loved ones he’s buried since childhood. In 2023—after surviving decades of war, crisis, and corruption—he finally left for Belgium to pursue a master’s degree in anthropology.

It was supposed to be an escape from the instability back home. But it hasn’t helped. “Last semester, I had to drop three courses because I couldn’t concentrate,” Zein Eddine told me. “I was supposed to defend my master’s thesis in June, but because of what happened throughout the last year, I have to push it to next year.”

His family still lives in Majdal Selem. Most days, he finds himself glued to his phone—refreshing headlines, checking in on relatives, waiting for a call that might never come. But his trauma runs deeper than fear of another airstrike. It’s rooted in Lebanon’s broken political system. “Hezbollah is the party most of my family supports,” he says. “And that created a huge conflict between me and my family. They see Hezbollah as the only one trying to protect them. Because if the state has the ability or the intent to protect them, they would have.”

That belief—that Hezbollah is the only line of defense—explains why so many Lebanese continue to support the group, even as it drags their country into another war. In fact, in Lebanon’s local elections in May, establishment parties—Hezbollah, its Shiite ally Amal, and other traditional factions—won across dozens of municipalities.

This loyalty isn’t just hurting Lebanon—it’s affecting the entire Middle East.

Time to Act

For decades, Iran has pursued one goal: Expand its influence in the Middle East. So far, its most effective weapon has been Hezbollah. The Shiite Muslim political party and militant group was founded during the chaos of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war (1975-1990). Backed by Iran, Hezbollah was built to extend Tehran’s reach and resist Israel.

Over the past decade, the U.S. and Israel have pummeled other Iranian-aligned forces: the Shiite militias in Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, and Hamas in Gaza. But Hezbollah remains Iran’s strongest proxy.

In January, after nearly two years of political paralysis, Lebanon elected a new president: Joseph Aoun, the former army chief. In his inaugural speech, he declared that only the Lebanese army would bear arms—a direct rebuke to Hezbollah’s claim that it alone can defend the nation.

But so far, Aoun’s attempts to engage with Hezbollah have gone nowhere.

“We need the ruling elite to, forgive my term, man up—to act,” said Hicham Bou Nassif, an associate professor of International Relations and the Middle East at Claremont McKenna College.

Bou Nassif left Lebanon at 30 to pursue higher education in the U.S.

Like millions in the Lebanese diaspora—he had no choice but to build a future outside his beloved homeland and like so many of his countrymen he’s been enormoously successful when freed from the pathologies of his native land. No wonder he’s not moving back.

“When I got my Ph.D., it was time to go back,” he tells me. “But which Lebanon was I supposed to go back to? A Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon? No, thank you. So yeah, I was pushed out.”

Bou Nassif says the political system has condemned Lebanon to chaos. But he also sees potential for revival.

There’s a large middle class and countless Lebanese expats who yearn to return to their homeland—a place once known as the Paris of the Middle East. On the Mediterranean coast with snow-capped mountains that slope down to serene beaches, abundant harvests, world-renowned cuisine and nightlife, and a spiritually rich history.

“Can you imagine if you have peace? You’d have half a million Lebanese expats moving back. The country could boom in no time,” Bou Nassif says. “But will we have peace? Nobody’s going to leave New York or Montreal to go back to the status quo.”

Lebanon has the people, talent, and passion to rebuild. What it lacks is leadership willing to put the country first.

The post Hezbollah Isn’t Finished appeared first on Washington Monthly.

After any major international agreement or legislative achievement, it’s natural and proper to look back and explore how it happened and who made it happen. That is how we learn what steps should be taken, and avoided, to spur positive change. But far too much attention in the political and media spheres is being paid to the question of whether one person, President Donald Trump, deserves the credit for the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Sunday talk show anchors this week pressed Democrats on “How much credit does President Trump deserve for this deal,” if the cease fire was “a clear win” for Trump, and if “this peace deal came together now because President Trump was more effective at pressuring Prime Minister Netanyahu than former President Biden.” 

We will learn nothing from a cramped debate designed to flatter one man’s ego and buoy his hollow, self-indulgent quest for a Nobel Peace Prize. And we will steer attention away from the far more tragic yet instructive strategic failures on all sides that produced so much needless death and suffering and likely have set back the cause of peace for decades. 

That Trump gets some credit for the ceasefire agreement is not even something in dispute. All reporting indicates he successfully leaned on a reluctant Netanyahu to accept Hamas’s offer to release the 20 remaining living Israeli hostages in exchange for Israel releasing far more Palestinian prisoners, without any broader peace agreement in place or commitment by Hamas to disarm.  

But the value of that credit is limited. Finalizing such a deal after two years of ruthless war that left Gaza in rubble and depleted negotiating leverage for Hamas is not exactly a diplomatic feat on the order of the Camp David Accords. No trust has been built between Israelis and Palestinians, no vision of permanent peaceful coexistence has been offered, let alone given lip-service to. The long-standing presumption that Israel still sought a two-state solution has been extinguished by the statements of those now in power. At the micro-level, freedom for individuals in captivity is worthy of celebration. At the macro-level, what is there to cheer?  

According to Gaza Health Ministry statistics, Hamas’s decision to attack Israel two years ago led to nearly 70,000 deaths of its own people, about three percent of the Gazan population. Among the dead were six members of Hamas’s own leadership. Much of the territory has been reduced to rubble, and according to the United Nations, about 90 percent of the population has been displaced, often multiple times. The most optimistic estimate from the U.N. for how long reconstruction will take is 16 years, and the most pessimistic 80 years. From the Palestinian perspective, the October 7 attack was an unmitigated disaster. 

But this is no zero-sum game that requires christening Israel as the winner by default. The October 7 attack that killed nearly 1200 Israelis was a massive military, intelligence, and security failure on the part of a complacent Israeli government, uninterested in the peace process yet unwilling to believe their own peace could be so easily shattered. Clear signs of a pending assault were known yet repeatedly downplayed and dismissed.  

The brutally overwhelming military response from Israel decimated Hamas and rolled back its allies Iran and Hezbollah, but at enormous cost to civilian human life and Israel’s global reputation and support for its right to exist; and to unity within the Jewish diaspora. The notion that Hamas or other Palestinian groups will now be kept at bay by Israel’s military might flies in the face of the decades-long history of Middle East strife, in which military victories are eventually reciprocated by asymmetric terrorist attacks. The seeds for irrevocable mistrust and ongoing conflict have been deeply planted. Without even a trace of hope in the near future for a two-state solution, we should expect them to grow for more decades. There were no strategic choices by Israel or Hamas that anyone in the future should ever want to replicate.  

And Trump? Yes he secured this ceasefire agreement … seven months after he failed to maintain the ceasefire agreement struck by Biden in January. But Trump is never interested in protecting the “wins” of others. He loves to do just enough to organize his own ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Now he can assert that his agreement portends the “historic dawn of a new Middle East” even though there is no reason to believe that’s true—unless you think that Israel can and should persevere indefinitely by militarily subjugating Palestinian territories, without much global support, and that somehow amounts to a new dawn. 

There is nothing in Trump’s record to show he has any understanding of the complex, multifaceted policy approaches required to strike not just a temporary agreement with a handshake, but a lasting peace fortified by hard-earned mutual trust, political compromise, and economic codependence. There is nothing in Trump’s record to suggest he cares about what may happen to any temporary agreement beyond his time in office, or even beyond the initial photo-op. The question, “is Trump more effective at pressuring Netanyahu than Biden” is extraordinarily narrow. Even if the answer is yes, does that mean Trump has superpower diplomatic skills that will be deployed to do the necessary follow-through work? Of course not. We all know Trump wants to do just enough—or be perceived as doing just enough—to get his medal, and that’s it.  

We who live on Earth are stuck with Trump for another three years and three months. I understand the incentive for other world leaders to genuflect in hopes of surviving. But the rest of us need not fall over ourselves to narrow our fields of vision and place Trump at the center of every story. The lesson to learn from the October 7 attacks and the subsequent Israel-Hamas hostilities is not how a vainglorious blowhard can channel his thirst for validation into tenuous ceasefire agreements. It’s how the dark thrill of self-righteous violence in the short run can easily lead to devastating consequences in the long run. 

The post “Does Trump Deserve Credit for the Ceasefire?” Is the Wrong Question  appeared first on Washington Monthly.

Note: This interview originally ran on the Substack Old Goats with Jonathan Alter with no paywall. Subscribe to Old Goats to support Jon’s work.

Like millions of others, I have strong feelings about Gaza. I think the U.S. should immediately suspend aid to Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist criminal government until it agrees to a ceasefire, and that Americans who back him are complicit in turning the Jewish State into a pariah state that will have a harder time surviving in the long run. At the same time, the international community should move beyond lame “To be sure, October 7 was bad” qualifiers to a clear recognition that Hamas is arguably the only regime in modern history that actually wants its women and children killed for propaganda purposes and won’t allow them to take cover. Hamas militants hide in tunnels (where civilians aren’t allowed) and grab the food they need, at gunpoint if necessary. Note that the photos released last month of emaciated Israeli hostages were not accompanied by similar images of their captors, who are no doubt eating OK.

Now that I have that off my chest, I want to offer a dispassionate, factual assessment of what is actually happening with food relief efforts on the ground, where reporters are not allowed.

President Trump wants credit and a thank you (from a starving six-year-old with a satellite uplink?) for pledging (but not yet spending) $60 million in food aid. But the problem in Gaza is not money or even food supplies; it’s the war, which severely hampers the ability of relief organizations to access distribution points and prevent desperate civilians and armed gangs from pushing through security and grabbing the food off trucks.

So far, about 1,000 people have been killed near distribution points, though it’s unclear how many of them have been trampled to death, shot by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers (investigations of these incidents are underway), or killed by local thugs.

It’s also unclear how many Gazans have died from hunger. While North Darfur in Western Sudan is the only place in the world where “famine” is currently confirmed (i.e. at least 30 percent of children under age five with severe malnutrition and two deaths per 10,000 people a day), the situation in Gaza is dire, with more than half a million people enduring famine-like conditions and uncounted thousands dead from malnutrition-related illnesses.

There are few functioning bakeries, and Palestinians have been forced to make bread with old pieces of bread, old pasta, and other makeshift supplies. The World Food Programme (WFP), which won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for its efforts to combat hunger, promote peace and prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war, has tried to move flour and the fuel needed for cooking into the Gaza Strip. But with so many Palestinians crammed into vast seaside encampments or trying to return to dangerous, bombed-out buildings (often their former homes), most of them sealed off by the IDF, it’s almost impossible to provide relief with bullets still flying.

A ceasefire would immediately relieve hunger, as the brief ceasefire did in January and February. Jonathan Dumont, who for 22 years, has headed television communications for the WFP, told me: “With no shooting, people can go out and look for food.”

Dumont, an Emmy-winning former broadcast journalist for CNN and the BBC, has been in and out of Gaza throughout the crisis. He has seen worse starvation elsewhere, but not a situation of civilians trapped in a tiny area (the Gaza Strip is roughly the size of metropolitan Detroit) with no place to flee. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. We had dinner in Rome in June and continued the conversation by email this month. Excerpts:

JONATHAN ALTER: How have the recent images of starving Palestinians flashed across the world changed things on the ground for the WFP and for Palestinian civilians?

JONATHAN DUMONT: The July 29 IPC Alert (the combined assessment of 21 famine relief agencies) warns that the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza. While you hear arguments about the data, people are starving. Having been there, I can assure you the desperation and hunger are palpable. You can hear it in people’s voices, you can see it in their eyes.

Despite the inability of non-Gazan and humanitarian journalists to access Gaza, images of desperate Palestinians trying to access food to feed their families and malnourished children withering away in their mother’s arms are apparently having an effect on decision-makers and leaders around the world.

This is why I work for WFP—to try to give a voice to the forgotten or hidden hungry in places like Gaza, Sudan, and Haiti who otherwise would starve in silence.

JA: Is the situation still worsening by the day, or is there some stabilization?

JD: We know how to fix the situation. It’s what we do. We need to flood Gaza with large-scale food aid – immediately and without obstruction. We need to keep it flowing each and every day to prevent mass starvation. During the ceasefire in January, when we were able to bring sufficient quantities of food, the problem of looting and seizure of our food disappeared. We need to get sufficient quantities of food into Gaza to reduce the level of desperation.

JA: The WFP estimated that 100,000 Gazans are suffering from “severe acute malnutrition.” What does that mean?

JD: Hunger weakens the immune system. Diseases that ordinarily can be fought off by a healthy, nourished person become deadly when someone is malnourished. This affects the most vulnerable the worst.

Food consumption—the first core famine indicator—has plummeted in Gaza since the last IPC Update in May 2025. Data shows that more than one in three people (39 percent) are now going days at a time without eating. More than 500,000 people—nearly a quarter of Gaza’s population—are enduring famine-like conditions, while the remaining population is facing emergency levels of hunger.

JA: Any idea how many women and children are starving? Hunger is always worse for them, right?

JD: The latest IPC indicates that as of July 2025, more than 320,000 children, the entire population under five in the Gaza Strip, are at risk of acute malnutrition, with thousands suffering from severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of undernutrition. Essential nutrition services have collapsed, with infants lacking access to safe water, breast milk substitutes, and therapeutic feeding. 

In June, 6,500 children were admitted for treatment for malnutrition, the highest number since the conflict began. July tracked even higher, with 5,000 children admitted in just the first two weeks. With fewer than 15 percent of essential nutrition treatment services currently functional, the risk of malnutrition-related deaths among infants and young children is higher than ever before. 

JA: There is some food in the stores, but the prices are astronomical, right? Can you give us some idea of what food costs there?

JD: This report on prices is accurate. Food systems have collapsed, and humanitarian food assistance, the main lifeline for most households, is dwindling. People have exhausted all coping mechanisms. Community kitchens are overwhelmed, and reaching food distribution points often requires dangerous, high-risk journeys, especially for the most vulnerable. Most households now rely on minimal staples—mainly pulses and bread. But bread consumption has dropped to just four days a week, far below pre-conflict levels. This extreme lack of nutrients is driving widespread starvation, disease, and excess mortality. In the market, flour for bread has been up (hundreds of times) more expensive than before the war, and cooking fuel is nowhere to be found. In July, over 95 percent of the cargo delivered was taken by large crowds of civilians desperate for food. Although the cargo never reached the intended destinations, through our regular distribution system, flour prices decreased in some areas.

JA: With so many Palestinians pushed by the IDF out of one place after another, are there logistical problems that people should be more aware of?

JD: Currently, 88 percent of Gaza is under evacuation orders by the IDF. Almost everyone in Gaza is homeless and hungry. Improvised tent cities spring up in what was once farmland or sports stadiums. I met families who had given up moving from the north to south and back again across deadly militarized corridors, finally decided to risk going back to their destroyed homes. One family I met in Khan Younis literally burrowed out the rubble from their collapsed home and moved back into it—well aware that a rainfall could bring the collapsed walls crushing down on top of them. I met another family that had moved back into their apartment on the 4th floor of a building teetering precariously on the edge of a canyon that was once a very dense neighborhood. For WFP and other humanitarian agencies, restriction of movement due to military operations makes reaching the most vulnerable displaced an enormous challenge.

JA: When we spoke in Rome in June, you mentioned bottlenecks at the border. Is that still a problem?

JD: We don’t have too many problems getting food to the border crossing at the moment. The problems come later when we send trucks from inside Gaza to pick it up. Then the restrictions and slow permissions, probably due to ongoing military activity, make it hard to get our convoys on the road. When we do, there are crowds of people waiting to grab the food off the trucks. We are forced to take the same roads, which everyone inside Gaza is aware of. So they wait there. We’re bringing food in as much as we can, but we’re still unable to organize proper distributions, provide flour to bakeries, supply hot meals kitchens, and all the things we should be doing.

JA: You’ve spent the night in “de-conflicted zones” that are meant to be safer. Are they? How do the dangers to your personal safety compare to your work in other countries?

JD: I frequently work in war and conflict zones. In the past year or so, I have been to gang-controlled areas of Haiti, seen the battle for minerals in eastern Congo, the frontlines of the war in Khartoum, Sudan, witnessed the ethnic, religious, and regional tensions in post-Assad Syria, and others. In many conflicts, people have the choice to flee, but sometimes they are cut off in besieged areas. WFP is blessed to have incredibly skilled people capable of negotiating access in the most challenging places with some of the world’s deadliest armed groups. Negotiating for access becomes increasingly critical for humanitarians working in conflict zones, but Gaza is a pressure cooker closed off by land, sea, and air. Nobody gets in or comes out if it’s not authorized by the Israelis. Humanitarian agencies authorized to work in Gaza are theoretically de-conflicted, but no one is safe in Gaza. We coordinate all movements and operations with the Israelis, but guest houses and clearly marked vehicles have been hit. According to the UN Secretary General, the number of aid workers killed in Gaza is the highest in UN history.

JA: How much of a problem is it that the IDF wants to empower anti-Hamas militants who are unreliable partners for famine relief?

JD: The breakdown of law and order, fundamental elements of civil society and infrastructure, combined with the desperation of the population, has made bringing in food increasingly dangerous for humanitarian organizations like WFP. Armed gangs have attacked convoys and beaten drivers, but as we have seen during the ceasefire in January, these problems disappear when we are able to get enough food in.

JA: A little history might help contextualize things. Biden officials told me in 2024 that setting up the humanitarian corridors I and a lot of other people were pushing for was easier said than done. Could the US have done more to pressure the Israelis to establish and maintain them?

JD: Gaza needs a surge of humanitarian supplies, food aid, medicines, water, and specialized nutrition products in order to alleviate the suffering in Gaza.

What’s needed most now is a ceasefire so that we can deliver vital aid safely, securely, predictably, and at scale to everyone inside Gaza. This is not a one-day or one-week operation. It will require continued effort on the ground to meet the humanitarian needs. We have experienced teams on the ground and proven systems in place to respond at scale. The UN and WFP in Gaza have the capacity, the food supplies, the experience, teams on the ground, and a network of distribution points to deliver life-saving aid across Gaza – but only if we have the proper access and operating conditions.

JA: Where is the most severe food emergency in the world right now?

JD: Two years of war have turned Sudan into the world’s largest hunger crisis. Over 24 million people—half the population—already face acute hunger. Famine has been confirmed in 10 locations and is spreading.

JA: Thanks, Jonathan.

The post Hunger in Gaza—the Facts appeared first on Washington Monthly.

Yesterday, CNN broke the news of a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) preliminary report showing that the Iranian nuclear programs at underground facilities targeted by U.S. airstrikes over the weekend were not “completely and fully obliterated,” as President Donald Trump claimed, but instead were likely set back a matter of months. To get a better sense of that report and what it means, I spoke with a source who has had a decades-long career in the U.S. military and the intelligence community, serving both in and out of government. The source requested anonymity to speak freely. The following is an edited version of our conversation:

Are you surprised that this DIA report was leaked?

Not at all. The results would be of high interest. Hundreds of folks at least would be on the distribution list or have access to the report.

How reliable is this report? 

Time will tell. But the DIA is the key intelligence agency that does these kinds of after-action damage assessments. That’s their traditional role and they’re very good at it. Their assessments are typically based on a combination of imagery, signals intelligence largely provided by the NSA, and human intelligence that comes from the CIA, the Israelis, and other sources. The DIA would have pulled these strings together to come up with their assessment of the damage. These nuclear sites have been the focus of the United States and Israel for decades and we’ve built up considerable sources over the years. The Israelis have clearly penetrated Iran at the highest levels. So presumably, in addition to what we can see from satellites, we are hearing chatter from within the Iranian national security bureaucracies. We will see. This is only a preliminary report, but it is not encouraging.

Are you surprised at what seems to be the limited degree of damage to these facilities? 

No, the United States military has been toiling for several decades to develop weapons capable of destroying underground facilities.  These complexes are called “Hard and Deeply Buried Targets” (HDBT).  These efforts started all the way back in the Clinton administration when the Secretary of Defense was looking at options for taking out Libya’s underground chemical weapons complex at Tarhuna. At the time, none of the options on the table were palatable, so the quest began to develop air delivered munitions that could take out these targets. It proved far more difficult than anyone would have imagined. The government established a test facility, a mock underground chemical and nuclear production facility, out in the western US and bombed it literally for years. Every imaginable type of bomb or combination of bombs were used, rarely did it cause any more than superficial damage to the facility. So, this latest weapon, long in development but never deployed, has demonstrated once again that if an adversary simply digs deeply enough, the laws of physics are on their side. So, these results were disappointing, but by no means surprising, following a long history of failure against this type of target. That’s a major reason why previous administrations have been resistant to using them.  

If this initial report proves true, what are the consequences? 

Terrible. As long as we didn’t use them, Iran didn’t know for sure how damaging they could be. That gave us leverage with them. Now the situation is reversed. We’ve revealed or confirmed that our most fearsome weapon, or the most fearsome we’re willing to use—we could drop nukes or send in the 82^nd Airborne, but that’s not going to happen—can collapse the entrances of tunnels but not destroy facilities buried deeply in a mountain. Going into any negotiations with them, they know our limits. That doesn’t mean Iran is in a strong position. Israel has decimated its military, and its economy is in ruins because of sanctions. In any negotiations with Trump, it’s the sanctions they want lifted. But now they’re in a much better position to get what they want than they were before this bombing run, especially considering other intel suggesting that the regime removed some or all its highly enriched uranium and centrifuges out these facilities before the attack. 

And not just Iran. Every other adversarial regime now knows these weapons are essentially duds. That weakens our leverage considerably with all of them. I am sure Kim Jung Un is happy in North Korea today.

What do you make of the fact that Trump is continuing to insist that the facilities were totally destroyed? 

I’d say that’s not going to fly. If I’m the Iranians, I’m going to clear the rubble from the entrances of those facilities and then invite CNN and Al Jazeera to bring their cameras into the tunnels and show that they’re still there, still functional. 

The post Will Trump’s Bombing Raid on Iran Prove Not Just a Bust, But a Disaster? appeared first on Washington Monthly.

It’s been 80 years since the first nuclear summer when the U.S. unleashed the power of the atom on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Four score later, we’re in another war, despite yesterday’s declaration of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.  

Few in the summer of 1945 and fewer still during the Cold War years that followed would have imagined that no nuke would be used on a civilian population for 80 years. The close calls during the long, twilight struggle—as John F. Kennedy described the Cold War—were chillingly numerous. Despite the Berlin crises, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan, not to mention the fall of the Iron Curtain across Eastern Europe, the hideously elegant logic of deterrence proved ironclad. Nuclear powers would be mad to fight directly. So, they have not, even as proxy wars between the U.S. and Russia and, sometimes, China have cost millions of lives from the rice paddies of Southeast Asia to the frozen Chosin Reservoir to the jungles of Bolivia and the sands of Sinai.  

But the logic of 20th-century deterrence that kept the nuclear peace for 80 years, combined with 21st-century events, means the desire for nuclear weapons among the nuke-less has gone up, not down. That is especially true this week, and why more countries will want nuclear weapons, not only because of recent history, Iran’s deadly ambitions, and the wild oscillations of the 45^th and 47^th presidents of the United States, Donald Trump. 

There are 195 members of the United Nations. Only nine have nuclear weapons—the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Democratic nations that might occasionally daydream about acquiring nuclear weapons but have heretofore forsworn them—such as Germany, Japan, Poland, South Korea, to name a few—have shown restraint either because of their fraught histories and, more importantly, because they enjoy (or enjoyed) nuclear umbrellas, specifically American atomic prophylaxis.  

One irony of Trump’s second term is that while he’s helped Israel’s effort to set back Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, the showman’s erratic temperament and manic ability to shred once sacred alliances have made it much more likely that Seoul, Warsaw, Taipei, or even Berlin and Tokyo will want to consider spinning centrifuges. Can anyone count on the American nuclear umbrella when the president is mercurial and mendacious, when he seems more likely than not to jettison NATO? French President Emmanuel Macron has not only returned to Gaullist ideas of French nuclear independence, with its force frappé, but has also offered to bring other European nations under Paris’s nuclear protection. In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made similar moves. They would be foolish not to do that.  

That is the sober thinking among American traditional allies. Imagine what it is in the minds of America’s enemies and frenemies. Think of the view from Caracas. If you’re Nicolas Máduro, the Venezuelan strongman, and the U.S. has vowed regime change and told the U.S. Supreme Court that your country is currently invading America thus allowing mass deportations (read: immigrants escaping your destruction of a once-prosperous economy) how would you assess the situation in Iran this week and the events of last 25 years? The lessons of the 20th century are that deterrence works between nuclear powers: the U.S./USSR, India/Pakistan. Tensions may flare, but everyone steps back from the brink. The lesson for 21st-century dictators like Máduro is that you can be invaded/thrown out of power if you do not have a nuke.  

Iraq (which feigned having one but did not), Ukraine (which gave them up under Bill Clinton’s administration), Libya (which gave up its weapons of mass destruction program under George W. Bush), Iran (which tried to build one and got bombed), Syria (which tried to build one and got toppled) are cautionary tales. North Korea’s regime survives because it has nukes and a mammoth conventional army. Why wouldn’t Máduro want nuclear weapons? It’s unlikely he can get them, but not impossible. What’s important is that the calculus of risk and reward has made nukes seem more attractive to many leaders. That may sound counterintuitive given the degree to which American administrations have gone to keep the Mullahs of Tehran from joining the nuclear club, especially this week. But not all countries are Iran, and most could anticipate a very different reaction from this president. 

If you are an intelligence official in Riyadh or a defense planner in Taipei, the events of the last week only confirm why you would want a nuke. And unlike Máduro, these prosperous nations have the means. Taiwan may or may not be able to count on an American defense of the island but given the chip maker’s strategic importance and a bipartisan consensus in the U.S. opposing Chinese hegemony, it probably can. Probably. These days, the famed “strategic ambiguity” of what the U.S. would do in the face of a Beijing assault, promoted by presidents since Richard Nixon went to “Red China,” is ambiguous. Acquiring a nuclear weapon would have risks for prosperous Taiwan, but it could also add to its deterrence.  

Likewise, will Trump keep American forces on the Korean peninsula, where they have provided a nuclear tripwire for more than 70 years? Will the new center-right government in Seoul be able to rely on it, or will it want its own deterrent?  

The Saudi ambitions to cut a nuclear deal with the U.S. and Israel, while perhaps moribund given the disaster in Gaza, still have a compelling logic behind them. Whatever shape Iran is in right now, Tehran’s very public and very proud national project of building a large nuclear sector—celebrated in postage stamps and holidays, begun during the era of the Shah—cannot be utterly obliterated any more than Riyadh’s can. The smarts and know-how of the Persian nation with 90 million citizens, mountains taller than the Alps, and a capital more populous than London will not be evaporated by Mossad commandos or U.S. bunker busters. If you are Mohammad Bin Salam, MBS, you still want a Saudi nuclear sector—weapons to repel the Shia, power for when the oil runs out. Who is to say Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, eager for wins, won’t find a way to get him one? 

The grand irony is that Trump brought us to this moment where nuclear non-proliferation, always a struggle to enforce but mostly a successful one, is threatened globally by the effort to eliminate one nation’s nuclear capacity. (See this excellent NBC News piece by Alexander Smith, citing proliferation experts from Seoul to Washington, D.C.) “The signs are that a new arms race is gearing up that carries much more risk and uncertainty than the last one,” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Director Dan Smith said Monday as his group unveiled its 2025 yearbook. 

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) forged during the Obama administration wasn’t perfect, nor intended to be so. It did what it was supposed to, as did arms agreements during the Cold War. The agreement between Iran and the five members of the United Nations Security Council—the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia, and China (plus Germany) did not seek to contain Iranian proxies in the region or its Medieval oppression at home. The JCPOA limited Tehran’s nuclear possibilities, not its conventional ambitions, just as Cold War arms treaties contained the arms race without challenging Soviet oppression at home and abroad. Limiting nukes is quite enough. 

While conservatives sounded alarms over allegations of Iranian cheating on enrichment, just as they often pointed to violations during decades of American-Soviet arms control pacts, Tehran was basically in compliance. The West not only had eyes and ears on the ground in Tehran but an unprecedented inspection regime and a formula for snapback sanctions. To quote Yiddish, today the West has bubkes in terms of inspection. There have been some International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors on the ground since the JCPOA collapsed, but the Iranians are unlikely to let them back in to what remains of the nuclear program. And if Iran withdraws from the global nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), even that cursory accounting will be gone.  

An insider deeply familiar with the Mullahs’ regime told me it could have fallen had the U.S. kept up with the JCPOA instead of unceremoniously withdrawing from it during Trump’s first term.  

It would have been one thing if Trump had withdrawn from the JCPOA with a consistent hardline approach like the one long touted by John Bolton, the Bush-era arms-control official and U.N. ambassador, who became Trump’s National Security Adviser before being fired. Today, the delicate, honest-broker role of the National Security Adviser as envisioned in the post-World War II world has been upended by Trump putting Secretary of State Marco Rubio, an Iran Hawk, in the position, precisely the kind of scale-tipping in policy-making that the National Security Act of 1947 was designed to prevent. Bolton did not believe an inspection regime would work with the Iranians, and their nuclear program had to be destroyed, and Rubio’s views are more Boltonesque than not. 

However, in his second term, Trump seemed to abandon Boltonism and the views of the hawkish Rubio, at least for a time. Trump literally abandoned the mustachioed Bolton himself by withdrawing the Yale diplomat’s security detail, which President Joe Biden never let lapse even after Bolton returned to private life; such is the nature of Iranian threats against him.  

Instead, in his second term, art-of-the-deal Trump opened the souk, he saber rattled Iran but was, unlike Rubio and Bolton, seemingly eager to cut his version of the JCPOA, much as he cut his own NAFTA deal, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, that bore a striking similarity to the 1990s agreement he’d long denounced as a betrayal of American workers. Given his TACO reputation (Trump Always Chickens Out), the 47^th president probably would have cut a far weaker deal than the JCPOA engineered by Secretary of State John Kerry had the Iranians played him more adroitly. No wonder Netanyahu, whose belli needs no casus, acted to box Trump in by striking Iran. (The Likud prime minister had that ability because President Joe Biden had armed Israel so heavily since October 7, 2023, and coordinated the extraordinary regional defense of Israel from Iranian ballistic missiles last year.) Trump took Bibi’s bait and dispatched the B-2s, which, in fairness, may have been the least bad option at that point. But the JCPOA abrogation, one of Trump’s original sins from his first term and Iran’s determination to obtain nuclear weapons, brought us to this.  

It’s too early to know much, my contact and many others say—what damage was done to the Iranian program, what Trump will do next, what the regime will do (we know about Iran’s performative Qatar attack and the ceasefire), and what, perhaps most importantly, the Iranian people will do. Will they overthrow the 46-year-old theocracy, rally around the flag, or continue grumbling to themselves? We can’t know what was buried or unleashed by Sunday’s American bombing of Fordow, Natanz, and other Iranian sites, except sadly, a growing desire in many of the world’s capitals for a nuke of one’s own. 

The post Will Trump’s Strikes on Iran Unleash a Global Arms Race?  appeared first on Washington Monthly.

Participants:

• Anne Kim, Contributing Editor and podcast host, Washington Monthly
• Paul Glastris, Editor-in-Chief, Washington Monthly
• Matthew Cooper, Executive Editor Digital, Washington Monthly
• Jacob Heilbrunn, Editor, The National Interest

A transcript of the conversation, lightly edited for clarity:

Anne Kim: Welcome to the Washington Monthly Politics Livestream. Today is June 23rd, 2025. So what happens when an isolationist president goes to war? 

Paul Glastris: So there’s so much to talk about. Let me kind of give you my take on it and you guys can react to it. You can agree, you can disagree. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we do have a pretty good sense of how we got here. And the way I would formulate how we got here is, Donald Trump inherited just a few months ago when he became president a second time, a situation inherited from Joe Biden that allowed him to do what he did over the weekend. That is, the United States’s proxy governments, primarily Israel and Ukraine, had so weakened the adversaries of the United States, primarily Iran and Russia, that Donald Trump could bomb these nuclear development sites with minimal immediate military risk. That was the opportunity he was given.

The ultimate reason that he felt it necessary to do this—because he did not want to, he would much rather have cut a deal—is the deal he got out of in his first term, which was the one negotiated by Barack Obama where Iran agreed to limit its development of nuclear fuel and freeze its nuclear weapons activities. Those are the two things that are the backdrop to how we got here. And let me just ask Jacob, who has given a lot of thought to this, to react to that idea.

Jacob Heilbrunn: Paul, I do think you’re onto something and as we talked about earlier, the media has downplayed or overlooked the fact that it was Trump who ripped up Obama’s deal with Iran originally and set us on the path to war with Iran. I have to say, frankly, I’m not sure any of this was necessary and my gut is that we are going to discover in coming days and weeks that this does look very much like Iraq War number two. And frankly, I have the willies about the whole thing.

If you look at the New York Times headline last night, it was that the administration doesn’t know where the highly processed uranium is.

Paul Glastris: Yeah, apparently there were imaging and intel that showed trucks near the basis of these underground bunkers moving stuff out days before the bombing.

Jacob Heilbrunn: Now, past does not have to be prologue. Maybe Trump by some miracle pulls it all off. However, what we’re seeing looks pretty darn similar to what we saw before, which is that there is in fact no plan for any of this. And then what results is chaos.

This takes us back—I’m not drifting from your question. This is the very reason that even though Biden may have set up the preconditions for Trump’s assault on Iran, I’m highly dubious that Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, if she were president now, would have pulled the trigger on these facilities because in essence, he has opened up a Pandora’s box. Every previous presidency, including George W. Bush, by the way, who was being urged to attack Iran rather than Iraq in 2003—he thought Iraq would be the easy country to topple. Well, this is why everyone has flinched.

Trump, I think who was egged on by the generals who have scores to settle with Iran, dating back to the Iraq War, because it was Iranian munitions, IEDs that were the most lethal weapons targeting American soldiers. So I think Trump is an impulsive guy. The incentives were all there for him. He wants to go down in history as a great president. He was looking weak over the past month. Everything lined up for him to do this. 

Matthew Cooper: Yeah, and I would say just to build on what Paul and Jacob have said, it’s not only that Trump threw out the JCPOA, the nuclear agreement that the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany and Iran had forged that seemed to keep Iran in the box. It may not have been perfect, but it had a “get the job done” quality that was basically working.

But Trump, after having thrown it out in his first term, in his second term reopened the souq, so to speak, to try to form his own JCPOA and was giving away the store. I think this is the guy who was ready to bring the Taliban to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11 when he was trying to cut an agreement with the Afghan regime. And so I think there was a certain—look, Bibi obviously is an unprincipled character who is trying to ensure his own survival. I think the Israelis had a legitimate reason to think we were seeing “give away the store” Trump with Iran. I think Bibi’s always been predisposed to move on Iran. I think he had even more cause. And so Trump not only screwed himself and put us in this box as you all said by throwing out the JCPOA originally but then by trying to go back and form his own JCPOA or unilateral version thereof. Madness.

Anne Kim: What do you think Trump’s options are from here? What can he do?

Paul Glastris: He can listen. Look, Jacob is right. There are generals out there and the four-star who was in command of this mission is someone who’s well known to be very aggressive. So if you ask the general in the field, who’s got a reputation for aggressiveness, “Hey, what do you think we should do?” He’s going to say, “Go for it.”

At the same time, I was speaking earlier this morning to a longtime source in the national security arena with direct operational knowledge of the region right now. He was reminding me that in the past, like when the United States took out this senior military official, Soleimani, the Iranians did some—or I think it was their proxies—some strikes at US military bases, I believe in Iraq. They sort of signaled to the US that they were limited, let them know they were coming in advance. And the US retaliated in a limited way. The regime is going to have to do something.

What the regime, if it’s wise, and it’s not shown a lot of wisdom recently, if it’s wise, will do what it did last time, which is not want to go up the escalatory ladder, right? Because the United States has far more ability if it wants to retaliate hugely. And so, you know, something limited, something signaled in advance, then the wise thing to answer your question, is for the Trump administration to listen to the generals. And I think this is what they’re going to hear from the generals, you know?

There is a performative quality to this. Let’s retaliate, but not escalate too much and then see where that goes. And if you do that, you might have this sort of not be Armageddon. But if the Iranians choose to mine the Strait of Hormuz, if they start really harassing our ships in the region—our Navy hates being in that region because they’re vulnerable—if the retaliations are persistent and escalatory, then Trump and the Pentagon are going to be very, very tempted to just destroy the Iranian Navy. You know, our military has the ability to do that to really escalate and boy then you’re at war.

(Update from the Associated Press: “Iran said its Monday night missile attack on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar matched the number of bombs dropped by the United States on its nuclear sites this weekend, signaling its likely desire to deescalate.”)

Jacob Heilbrunn: The problem, Paul, is that the Iranians must feel like their back is to the wall. When you have Trump coming out calling for, of all things, regime change in a tweet last night, I don’t know that the Iranians can distinguish perfectly between reality and hallucination with Trump. And the other part is that Trump has clearly lied to the Iranians.

I mean, it looks like these negotiations were camouflage for an assault. You couple that with his language. And the Israelis are still heavily bombing Iran. And my sense is that they would like to do to it what they did to Syria, which is devastate it as a military power. It’s not about nuclear weapons. It’s about eviscerating the Iranian military.

And Israel emerges as the hegemon of the Middle East. There will be no other power in the Middle East that commands the kind of military might that Israel does. Syria’s gone. Lebanon has been disposed of. Iraq was invaded and is not a threat. Iran was the big menace. I think we’re headed for a much greater conflict.

Matthew Cooper: It can always get worse. I think that’s a good instinct. Just to take a little bit of a glass-half-full advocacy, especially after speaking to a source who’s really steeped in this this morning. I think the Iranians are fairly limited in their response for now. It doesn’t mean they can’t mine the Strait of Hormuz, but I don’t think they’re totally irrational actors. I think they will take action, but I suspect they have a lot of options from killing dissidents overseas—a strike in the US on Iranian dissidents is not impossible. And frankly, something Trump’s immigration people might like.

So I think they’re somewhat limited there. And I think also Trump by nature does not have the George W. Bush, Dick Cheney messianic belief in democracy in the Middle East. Thank goodness, you know, he does not really—he’s not a democrat to begin with, small d. And I don’t think he has any intention of thinking it can take root overseas. So that’s at least one thing to counsel against him wanting to get in there. But I agree with you, it can definitely get much worse.

Jacob Heilbrunn: Let me just interject quickly, Matt, because one thing worries me about what you said, which is that Trump operates like a mob boss. And I don’t think he’s going to take—or he’s in it already. And if the Iranians defy him, I think his instinct is to crush them.

Matthew Cooper: You could well be right.

Anne Kim: Well, let’s turn now to the question of how Congress will or should react. We’re grappling with two separate but overlapping questions here, the first being the legality of the strike because when the Constitution says only Congress can declare war, are we in a war? And number two, whether the strike was the right thing to do, legal or not.

So on that first question, we have senators like Tim Kaine of Virginia who wanted Trump to get congressional approval before this. And now in the House, you’ve got Tom Massie and Ro Khanna of California arguing the same. On the other hand, you’ve got senators like Lindsey Graham, who say Trump was well within his rights. You’ve also got these diehard MAGA isolationists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and progressives like AOC arguing on the other side that the strikes were a mistake.

So how do you see all of this in Congress sorting out? And how durable is that loyalty to Trump on the MAGA side of the aisle, Jacob, you can speak to this. And when and if the backlash will begin.

Jacob Heilbrunn: I think the Democrats are largely positioning themselves if this is a failure to be able to denounce Trump. And I think it’s the right political call. They really don’t have much choice. And Trump is behaving in this conflict—it’s another opportunity for him to display his contempt for Congress. He didn’t even consult the Democrats. It probably is unconstitutional what he did, but he doesn’t care.

And you have Bob Kagan arguing that it’s prelude to upping authoritarianism in the US, which I don’t think is going to happen because I think this war is going to be a fiasco.

Paul Glastris: I mean, just as a general matter, Congress has for decades now progressively given away its power over the executive in matters of war. We are already seeing major MAGA figures like Charlie Kirk come round to supporting Trump on this, who were hardcore isolationists, you know, America Firsters, which was all perfectly predictable. I think the MAGA forces that are still against what Trump did and are gonna try to hold out will do as the Democrats are doing. And, you know, hold their powder, but hope that things do go poorly and be ready to pounce when they do.

I think it’s wise and strategically smart for Democrats and others to bring up the abuse of separation of powers that we’re seeing. I just don’t see any possibility that it matters in the near term.

Matthew Cooper: Let me take a somewhat different take, which is I think the Democrats are in more of a pickle, both intellectually and politically. I think intellectually, look, they were more than willing to let the authorization for the use of military force that Congress passed after 9/11 be extended to include Libya and other nations in Africa to use drone strikes promiscuously. I think now you can say there’s a difference between that and this, and maybe there is, but I think it’s a harder case to make when they’ve relied on a rather elastic definition of presidential war-making powers.

And then second, politically, I think if you look at something like Hakeem Jeffries’ statement, and I agree keeping your powder dry, being in a position to pounce when this thing goes south, as I agree with Jacob, it most likely will. But nevertheless, I think there was a certain churlishness. And I think if you were online the last couple of days and saw the reaction of prominent Jewish groups and Democrats, Jewish Democrats and others, being surprised about the somewhat churlish quality of this. I mean, the degrading of the Iranian nuclear threat and with all the dangers that come with it is still something that is not totally to be sniffed at.

And in that sense, I think Democrats can’t look either too legalistic or too eager for this to fail. I’d say keep your powder dry, but don’t—you know, keep your condemnations of Iran up. And there was none of that in, for instance, the Hakeem Jeffries statement last night, or Saturday night, Sunday night, excuse me.

Jacob Heilbrunn: The key will be gas prices.

Anne Kim: Yeah, I was going to get to that question. Jacob, in the five minutes we have remaining with you. Let’s talk about what the impact of this war is going to be on Americans here at home, including now a very heightened risk of a global recession because of gas prices. But there are other threats too. Matt, you alluded to this with the idea of unconventional retaliation that Iran could do. There was a white paper from 2016 from the Idaho National Laboratory warning of cyber attacks on the nation’s power grid and specifically cited Iran as a potential threat. So you’ve got these kinds of unconventional threats out there. What could we expect to see in the worst case scenario? What can we expect to see inevitably as a result of this conflict?

Jacob Heilbrunn: It would be a good time to take down America’s electric grid with 100-degree temperatures across the country. I think that there will be, if this war grinds on and—we are now begging the Chinese, the Trump administration went to China and asked them to ensure that Iran does not close the Strait of Hormuz. So that vitiates Trump’s leverage there with China. And if gas—you know, oil is at around 80—if it goes above 100, people will become very unhappy in the United States. That would be a good issue for the Democrats. They can start putting the “thank you Donald” stickers on the gas pumps the way people did with Biden.

Paul Glastris: I think the bottom line to your question is anybody who says they know what’s going to happen next hasn’t been reading the news over the last two decades very carefully. The unpredictability of what’s going to happen—there’s just too many variables. You know, Matt, I’m torn as to whether a Democratic president in the situation Trump was in—imagine, you know, Kamala Harris had been elected. She would possibly have been in a better position to get a deal with Iran diplomatically. But, you know, the damage had been done by Trump. If you assume they were in the same position, Jacob said no Democrat—or, I’m not sure a Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have made the same choice as Donald Trump did. I don’t know about Kamala Harris, but it wasn’t the easiest call in the world given the conditions. And so we’re going to know maybe in 10 years whether this was wise. I don’t think we’re going to know in three months or six months, or certainly tomorrow.

Anne Kim: Well, I think it’s pretty clear that the economy—well, he could have put the economy in a better position to absorb a shock like this one, but with the tariffs in place, this one big beautiful bill is going to increase our deficit situation, the deportations he’s carrying out that are also wreaking havoc on the economy. To me, it seems kind of clear that this is a mistake for the US economy, at least if nothing else. 

Matthew Cooper: I think that’s totally right.

Paul Glastris: I see no way that it helps.

Jacob Heilbrunn: I don’t think it’s going to take as long to figure this out, Paul. I think it’s already starting to erode. And the other part of the problem that we haven’t talked about is, look, obviously Bibi maneuvered this brilliantly on his own behalf, not in America’s interest. And Trump’s team is a team of clowns. Frank Bruni has a good piece in The New York Times today. These guys are not capable of conducting a longer-term conflict, nor by the way is Trump who has the attention span of a gnat. He reacts impulsively to every latest development. I don’t believe that these guys can safely steward our fortunes now that they have triggered this conflict.

Paul Glastris: One hundred percent, 100 percent. Right. And we devoted half of our last livestream to precisely the point that Jacob made, which is we haven’t had a national security team with less experience of running major national security operations in our lifetime.

Jacob Heilbrunn: The other point, Paul, is that they don’t even have a process. There’s no one drafting papers. No one’s figured out, well, here’s what the Iranians would do with uranium. But apparently The New York Times is reporting that the Iranians, based on Trump’s tweets, started moving the uranium. I mean, this is a one-man show.

Matthew Cooper: No. Yeah, they do have the apps.

Paul Glastris: They do have a signal channel, apparently.

Anne Kim: And they do have a social media channel too.

Paul Glastris: I hope we know sooner rather than later the fallout from this. I would not personally predict that in six months people are going to say, “I’m so glad Donald Trump took out these missile facilities.” You know, as a matter of operation, regardless of the killing of some senior scientists, Iran has been at this now for decades. There’s really not too many examples of countries being stripped of their capacities to produce nuclear weapons. These things are now embedded in their networks, their knowledge base. And if they have the equipment and the fuel, they can still do it.

And let us also go back to the point about the Obama agreement. With the Obama agreement, we had international inspectors swarming Iran and though it is technically possible and conservatives went on and on about these very unlikely possibilities of the Iranians being able to operate outside of those inspections. They were very protological in their sweep. That’s all gone. Right. And what we knew came from international inspectors. That’s now gone. So our ability to know what they’re doing is now gone. And we are looking at Iran the way we looked at Iraq, which is we had no idea whether they did or did not have nuclear capacity.

Matthew Cooper: Right, as my source said this morning it’s conjecture, but certainly plausible, had we stuck with JCPOA, that really might have led to regime change. I mean, there really was a lot of dissatisfaction with the mullahs, and we may find out that Trump has saved the regime in Tehran.

Jacob Heilbrunn: Bibi has won.

Anne Kim: Bibi has won. Well, Jacob, I want to thank you for joining us this morning. I know you need to run to another podcast. Jacob Heilbrunn, who’s the editor of The National Interest and a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council Eurasia Center. Jacob, thank you so much for taking time out of your morning to come on to the show. Hope to see you again.

The post Trump’s War Gamble: “Isolationist” President Opens Pandora’s Box With Iran appeared first on Washington Monthly.

“Young, attractive guy. Tough guy, you know. Strong past—very strong past. A fighter.”  

That’s how Donald Trump described Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former jihadist who, since December 2024, has been Syria’s de facto leader, after their recent meeting. Syria’s new president, Trump said, has “got a real shot at pulling it together.”  

A day earlier, during his visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Trump announced he would lift U.S. sanctions on Syria, igniting celebrations across the civil war-torn country. The Syrian pound immediately surged 25 percent against the dollar. Announcing the sanctions relief in front of an audience while Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman listened gleefully, Trump added, “Oh, what I do for the crown prince.” The room erupted in a standing ovation. Trump’s comment laid bare what many suspected: This decision had less to do with Syria’s future than with pleasing America’s Gulf allies. 

For Ahmad al-Sharaa, the moment is a turning point. In just six months, the former rebel commander has orchestrated the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and secured international legitimacy through a handshake with the American president. To his supporters, he is the man of great hope who liberated Syria from decades of tyranny and is shepherding its economic recovery.  

But for all the optimism flooding Damascus, the jubilation should be intertwined with caution. Lifting sanctions was a necessary economic step for the suffering Syrians, but it must not become a blank check for the al-Sharaa regime. There are troubling signs that Syria is not heading for democracy, but for a rebranded autocracy. Al-Sharaa’s record as Syria’s leader suggests a dangerous consolidation of power, growing repression of minorities, and a drift toward Islamist authoritarianism under the guise of national renewal. 

The first red flag came in March, when Sunni extremist militias massacred hundreds, if not thousands, of Alawi civilians. The militia violence was a reaction to attacks by remnants of Assad’s loyalist forces and was fueled by sectarian revenge. To be sure, the Sunnis’ sense of victimhood is understandable, having suffered immensely under the Assad regime. But this cannot excuse the recent bloodbath that unfolded with medieval brutality—families slaughtered in their homes, communities terrorized based on their sectarian identity. Al-Sharaa denied any involvement and announced that a committee would investigate. Two months later, that panel has yielded nothing of substance.  

Tragically, reports of smaller attacks against Alawis have circulated since the carnage in March. The concern isn’t just that perpetrators remain free—it’s that U.S. sanctions relief might be interpreted as indifference. For jihadi groups, this could be perceived as a green light to escalate sectarian violence with impunity. 

The danger extends beyond the Alawi community. Syria’s other minorities—Christians, Druze, and Kurds—are also increasingly under pressure. Al-Sharaa’s public statements champion unity and the rule of law. But his governing style suggests a return to strongman politics, echoing the Assad regime’s iron grip and centralization of power. Since December, Kurdish and Druze leaders have called for federal arrangements that would grant them autonomy within a unified Syrian state. Al-Sharaa has flatly rejected these proposals. Worse, in April, Syrian government forces launched assaults on Druze-majority areas near Damascus, killing 22 people before Israeli airstrikes halted the escalation. At the University of Aleppo, Druze students were driven from their dorms after facing threats and harassment from Sunni militants. Though tensions have cooled, minority communities remain on edge. Their calls for self-rule are being met not with dialogue, but with crackdowns. 

Al-Sharaa insists that he wants to rebuild Syria as a state of law. In practice, he is entrenching executive power. One of his first moves after taking control was to issue a constitutional declaration granting sweeping powers to the presidency. Elections, he also announced, could be delayed for up to five years. This timetable conveniently gives the 42-year-old ample time to entrench his allies in key institutions, suppress opposition movements, and prevent the rise of independent political actors. Many fear that Syria’s post-Assad political order may end up looking like Assad’s—only with Sunni Islamists at the helm instead of the Alawi ruling elite.  

That ideological shift is already visible in Syrian daily life. Under Assad, citizens were expected to stay out of politics but were largely left alone otherwise. Under al-Sharaa, personal freedoms are shrinking. Islamist militias aligned with the regime have begun enforcing religious norms in public spaces. In early May, gunmen stormed a Damascus nightclub, killing a young dancer. The message was clear: Secular lifestyles will no longer be tolerated.  

If these trends continue, Syria’s descent into renewed autocracy will be more than a national tragedy—it will be the latest collapse of democratic hope in the Arab region. Tunisia, the birthplace of the Arab Spring in December 2010, seemed like the great exception and beacon of hope for a decade. But President Kais Saied staged a constitutional coup in 2021 and has since governed with little regard for democratic norms. Egypt ousted one autocrat in 2011, only to fall to another in 2013. Yemen and Libya are mired in civil war. Bahrain’s rebellion was snuffed out quickly and brutally. The Syrian people paid the highest price of all for their democratic aspirations. That they could be governed yet again by a strongman is a bitter, but familiar outcome. 

What role should the United States play in Syria? Realistically, there are limits to American influence. Al-Sharaa’s ties to Saudi Arabia and Turkey give him powerful backers intent on shielding him from U.S. pressure, and Washington has long treated Syria as a peripheral figure. But the U.S. can send clear signals. If autocracy is returning to Damascus, Washington should not endorse it. At the very least, engagement with al-Sharaa should be conditional. Economic cooperation should depend on tangible improvements—minority self-rule, political pluralism, and independent investigations into atrocities committed during and after the civil war. If those benchmarks are not met, sanctions relief must remain reversible. 

In truth, all that is unlikely under the current American administration. Trump’s foreign policy is famously transactional, driven less by strategic vision—let alone moral considerations—than by the pursuit of deals, applause, and personal relationships. In al-Sharaa, Trump sees a winner—a man who defeated Assad, enjoys regional backing, and commands the streets. But this image, while true, is incomplete. Al-Sharaa and his men did indeed topple a tyrant. But so did Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, only to establish an Islamist autocracy instead of a secular one. America should work with al-Sharaa, and Trump’s opening to him is not wrong, but the Syrian strongman must remain under international scrutiny.  

The Syrian people deserve economic recovery. But they also deserve more than another autocrat concentrating power in Damascus, rejecting legitimate calls for federalism, and concentrating power with force and fear. Al-Sharaa will always be the man who ended Assad’s reign of terror. That is an honorable place to occupy in Syria’s history, but only if al-Sharaa doesn’t replace one dictatorship with another. On this crucial point, the jury is still out. 

The post Trump Is Betting on Syria’s New Strongman appeared first on Washington Monthly.

In late November 2024, an eerie silence fell over Lebanon’s southern border. Amid some of the heaviest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in months, with Israeli airstrikes hitting Beirut and Israeli troops pushing deeper into southern Lebanon, a ceasefire was reached. Hezbollah—once hailed across the Shia world as the vanguard of “resistance”—lay in ruins. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, dead; its heavy military infrastructure obliterated; its political grip shattered. The force that had defined Lebanese politics for two decades was no longer the dominant power in Beirut. 

What comes next for Lebanon—a country forever suspended between reinvention and ruin—is anything but clear. 

Lebanon did not choose this war. As in so many of its crises, the country was pulled in by the ambitions of others. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack on Israel, reigniting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Less than a day later, Hezbollah began striking targets in northern Israel, in solidarity with Hamas. By September 2024, Israel had launched a series of preemptive and devastating strikes—including the “pagers” operations—that decimated Hezbollah’s leadership, crippled its arsenal, and broke its psychological footing. When the ceasefire was signed on November 26, Hezbollah had lost thousands of fighters, its chain of command, and—most crucially—its aura of alleged invincibility. Its promise to protect Lebanon’s Shia community had proved hollow. 

Iran, for decades Hezbollah’s patron and protector, proved powerless to intervene, its failure branding it a paper tiger and undermining its credibility across the region. Then came another seismic shift: In December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria—long a junior partner to Iran and a vital conduit to Hezbollah—collapsed. Together, Lebanon and Syria now face the most dramatic upheaval in their political and sectarian landscapes in half a century. 

The Iranian-led order is no more. A new one has yet to emerge. Antonio Gramsci’s oft-cited phrase captures the moment with uncanny precision: “The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” 

Hezbollah will remain an important actor in Lebanese politics, but not a hegemon. The old order—marked by Iranian influence and Shia ascendancy—has crumbled. Lebanon now stands at a crossroads: the chance to reclaim sovereignty and pluralistic politics or the risk of another descent into fragmentation and chaos. 

To understand Lebanon’s predicament, one must start with a fundamental truth: Lebanese politics is a perpetual ethnic conflict. Lebanese identities and political allegiances are defined more by sect than by ideology or class. The country’s political drama is less a debate between ideologies than a contest between deeply rooted ethno-religious communities—the three biggest, Christians, Sunnis, and Shia—each with its own history, loyalties, and political parties.

This sectarian reality drives every significant political development. Leaders rise not on the strength of a policy platform but by commanding popular allegiances within their respective sects. Major political parties function as communal power centers, frequently linked to foreign sponsors who tip the internal balance when needed. 

For decades, Lebanon’s Christians have looked to the West, particularly France and the United States. This was already true during the Crusades, when many Christians dwelling on Mount Lebanon welcomed the Crusaders as liberators from the Muslim yoke and fought on their side. The Sunnis have historically turned toward the Arab world and identify with its causes, namely Palestine. And the Shia have increasingly looked to Iran, whose support helped transform Hezbollah from a fringe militia in the 1980s into the most powerful nonstate military actor in the world. Shia historical relations with Iran go back to at least the 16th century, when imams and scholars traveled from the Shia hinterland in Lebanon to help the Safavids convert Iran to Shiism.  

Foreign interventions have long informed Lebanese politics. The fortunes of local communities are tightly bound to the strength—or collapse—of their foreign patrons. When France was defeated by Germany in World War II, it quickly became vulnerable to British pressure in the Levant. That pressure eventually forced France out of both Lebanon and Syria, weakening its allies: the pro-French Maronite Christians in Lebanon and Alawi factions in Syria. In contrast, France’s departure empowered the anti-French Sunni communities in both countries, who had long been organizing against the colonial mandate imposed in 1920. 

Decades later, the Islamic Republic of Iran transformed Lebanon into a satellite state. With Iranian money, missiles, and training, Hezbollah built a parallel society in Lebanon: hospitals, schools, banks, and even grocery stores—all infused with ideological loyalty. It was a state within a state, and it paid well. It is estimated that some 50,000 Lebanese Shia families relied on Hezbollah for income, social services, and status. In return, Hezbollah demanded—and enforced—loyalty. Its critics, including fellow Shia, were met with threats or worse. Assassinations of journalists, MPs, and even a prime minister are widely attributed to the group or its allies. It is no exaggeration to say that at the height of Hezbollah’s power, from 2005 to 2024, political assassinations targeting the group’s enemies became the default way of doing politics in Lebanon.  

Hezbollah protected—and was protected by—the corrupt Lebanese political elite. When Lebanon’s economy collapsed in 2019—after years of corruption and mismanagement—Hezbollah shielded the country’s oligarchs in exchange for continued political cover. As long as Lebanon’s oligarchs legitimized Hezbollah’s armed status, under the pretense of “resisting Israel,” they were free to plunder the state. This Faustian deal was straightforward: Hezbollah turned a blind eye to what could be called Grand Theft Lebanon, i.e., the ruthless plundering of the country by politicians operating essentially as organized crime figures, who then, in exchange, legitimized Hezbollah’s arms under the guise of fighting Israel, even though Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon in 2000. This pact contributed directly to Lebanon’s economic collapse. By 2021, the Lebanese lira had lost 95 percent of its value, and GDP had been halved—from $52 billion in 2019 to $23 billion just two years later. All of this, of course, in the name of “resistance” against Israel. 

But that resistance has now yielded catastrophe. Hezbollah’s promises of protecting Lebanese civilians proved empty as Israeli bombs leveled Shia villages in the south. Thousands fled, joining the ranks of Lebanon’s internally displaced. And as the dust settles, Hezbollah finds itself defeated by Israel—while remaining a threat to Lebanon. 

What is left of Hezbollah is dangerous precisely because it is cornered. It still commands the loyalty of thousands of fanatical supporters and retains enough light weaponry to intimidate domestic opponents. The days of Hezbollah threatening Israel’s northern cities or posturing as a regional power might be over, but that doesn’t mean Lebanese who do not share the fundamentalist Shia organization’s ideology are safe.  

Hezbollah currently faces a deepening financial crisis. Long its primary benefactor, Iran is struggling under sanctions and internal dissent. The Syrian regime—Hezbollah’s logistical lifeline—collapsed in late 2024, and with it, the lucrative Captagon drug trade that helped bankroll the group. Hezbollah’s vast social network, long sustained by Iranian aid and narco-trafficking, now demands reconstruction funds and welfare for thousands of widowed and displaced Shia. 

In this environment, Hezbollah may look to a familiar piggy bank: the Lebanese state. The temptation is obvious, with billions in potential international aid pledged for reconstruction. And given the enduring strength of Hezbollah’s political apparatus—and the corruption of Lebanon’s other political elites—there is a real risk that this aid will be looted and not used to rebuild.  

The alternatives are equally grim. If the aid doesn’t come—perhaps because donor countries like Saudi Arabia remain wary of Hezbollah’s influence—Lebanon’s economic crisis will deepen. A no-aid scenario means continued currency collapse, mass emigration (more “brain drain”), and a deepening sense of national despair. Either way, Lebanon teeters on the edge of reverting to a failed state.  

Yet amid the rubble, there are signs of resistance—not from Hezbollah, but to it. 

In January 2025, after nearly two years of political paralysis, Lebanon elected a new president: the former army chief Joseph Aoun. General Aoun, widely respected across sectarian lines, is no friend of Hezbollah. In his inaugural speech, he declared that only the Lebanese army would be permitted to bear arms in the country—a direct rebuke to Hezbollah’s long-standing claim that it alone could defend the nation. The new prime minister, Nawaf Salam, also hails from the anti-Hezbollah camp. And in parliament, Hezbollah’s opponents have a slim but absolute majority. Furthermore, the Lebanese Armed Forces are not under Hezbollah’s direct control, though some Shia recruits might have sympathy for the group. And crucially, American and European envoys are now back in Beirut, working with the LAF to implement the ceasefire and begin the process of demilitarizing Hezbollah. 

For the first time in years, the Lebanese state has an opening—albeit narrow—to reassert control and build a post-Hezbollah future. But such a future will require Aoun and Salam to show courage and leadership and demilitarize the Shia organization. The leaders can count on vast popular support in Lebanon if they do so—but they will also need concrete international backing.  

That support must come in part from Washington. Historically, American policy toward Lebanon has followed a familiar cycle: long periods of neglect punctuated by brief bursts of intervention. In 1958, Dwight Eisenhower deployed 10,000 Marines to quell an uprising directed against the Western-friendly administration of Lebanese President Camille Chamoun. In 1982, Ronald Reagan sent U.S. forces following Israel’s invasion, only to withdraw them after the deadly Marine barracks bombing in 1983 (committed by a young upstart group named Hezbollah) and the collapse of the Lebanese army along sectarian lines in 1984. The following two decades saw little engagement, until the George W. Bush administration pressured Syria to withdraw from Lebanon in 2005 following the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.  

The logic of American indifference to Lebanon is understandable. Lebanon has no oil. Its internal politics are byzantine and seem intractable. And its instability is seen as beyond redemption—a mess best avoided. However, that logic has yielded problematic results for America and disastrous consequences for Lebanon.  

Every time America abandons Lebanon, subversive actors fill the void—Palestinian guerrillas in the 1970s, Syrian occupiers in the 1990s, and Hezbollah in the 2000s. These forces then provoke Israel, inviting retaliation and regional escalation. Eventually, America is dragged back in—under worse conditions than before. 

A more sustainable approach lies somewhere between intense involvement and total abandonment. Today, the U.S. should support the LAF, sanction politicians who obstruct demilitarization, and encourage a formal peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel. With the Abraham Accords now linking Israel to Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan, there is little strategic rationale for Lebanon to remain on a perpetual war footing. Closing the southern front would deprive future radicals of their favorite pretext: “resistance” against Israel. It would give Lebanon the breathing room it desperately needs to begin healing.  

After decades of wars and foreign invasions, the Lebanese understandably yearn for peace and stability. Though things remain fluid, the new regional power configuration may provide an opening to achieve such a goal. Lebanon can sink further into chaos or use Hezbollah’s defeat as a catalyst for change. Disarmament, reconstruction, political reform, and—ultimately—breaking away from the centralized system of governance and toward a federal model will all be required for the decades-long Lebanese nightmare to finally end. 

The post Lebanon’s Precarious Future appeared first on Washington Monthly.

Earth-shattering events do not reveal their secrets quickly, and the recent breakdown of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime in Syria is no exception. And if understanding why events unfolded the way they did in Syria is challenging, then foreseeing where the country will go from here is even more difficult.  

As things stand, there are four central questions that pro-democracy observers of Syria need to ask themselves. The answers will shape the country’s dynamics for the foreseeable future.  

The first question pertains to the transformation of the leading Syrian rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), from transnational jihadi militancy to a more Syria-centered version of moderate Islamism. HTS’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, has issued reassuring messages since his forces triumphed. Is HTS’s transformation from its al-Qaeda-related origins real, or is it a public relations campaign launched by an actor who needs time to consolidate power before revealing his unchanged radicalism? Assuming there is more to this transformation than theatrics, how far will it go? In truth, a militant group can morph into a political force. Sinn Féin was associated with the militant Provisional Irish Republican Army before becoming involved in the peace process leading to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. In Israel, Menachem Begin’s Irgun turned from paramilitary militancy to political activism via the Herut party—the forerunner of today’s Likud. Given Turkey’s influence over HTS and the Syrian people’s longing for stability after untold suffering, HTS could move away from its extremist roots.  

That said, the situation is especially complex in Syria because the rules of the game will have to be invented from scratch. There are few norms, procedures, or basic foundational ideas that all Syrians accept as legitimate—rules that Islamists know they will pay a political price for breaking. Thousands of transnational jihadis who joined the Syrian conflict, including some in HTS, may resist deradicalization. Assuming they refuse, will al-Julani have the authority, let alone the will, to crack down on the more radical factions? It’s difficult to answer this question at this point because HTS is a relative newcomer to the Jihadi game in the Middle East, and reliable information about it remains scarce. While numerous studies and books have been published on groups like Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, or the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, HTS is still enigmatic.  

The second question is tied to the first. While HTS is the largest Arab Sunni militant organization in Syria, it is not the only one. Others include the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army and the Southern Operation Room. These organizations fought with HTS against Assad, but they could become rivals for power and leadership.  

If rivalries escalate, the familiar story of fratricide civil-wars-within-a-civil-war will repeat itself. Indeed, organizations overthrowing a regime or occupation often collaborate until they achieve their common goal, only to turn mercilessly against each other. Consider the intra-mujahideen civil war following the collapse of Afghanistan’s communist regime in 1992 and the Kurdish civil war in 1990s Iraqi Kurdistan. Within Syria, HTS forcefully subdued rival groups like Ahrar al-Sham in 2017 and Hurras al-Din in 2019. Should Sunni factions turn on each other, the “Somaliazation” of Syria—descent into complete chaos and warlordism against a backdrop of a failed state—could ensue.  

But this grim scenario is not inevitable. HTS has demonstrated political acumen so far, and it may be able to assuage rival groups via cooptation or complete absorption. Moreover, the international community is interested in avoiding new migratory flows that will indeed resume if Syria implodes. This exogenous factor can play a role in stabilizing the situation and avoiding doomsday scenarios.  

The third question pertains to inter-sectarian relations in Syria. The Assad dynasty hails from the Alawis, an offshoot sect of Shia Islam whose followers are traditionally despised as heretics by the ruling Sunnis in the Middle East and so never thrived under Sunni rule, whether it be Ottoman or Syrian. The Assad regime instrumentalized the Alawis’s resentment of Sunnis to transform the community into a tool of government repression. The Alawi blood feuds that have roiled Syria since 1970, when Hafez al-Assad seized power, until 2024, when his son Bashar lost it, are numerous and frightening. It is difficult to imagine Sunni-Alawi relations healing in the immediate future, given the depth of Sunni suffering under Assad and Alawi complicity in his crimes. It is vital for the future of Syria that Sunni suffering be acknowledged and that at least some of Assad’s most notorious henchmen be brought to justice. Ideally, this could include Bashar al-Assad himself in the unlikely event that Putin allows it. But Sunni revanchism should not be allowed to turn into collective punishment of Alawis. Furthermore, Syria’s Christians and Druze should be recognized as citizens on par with fellow Syrians rather than merely being tolerated as dhimmis, i.e., protected minorities under Islam.  

The Kurdish question in Syria is more urgent, if only because the Kurds yield powerful militias and have been self-ruling for years. Given the history of Arab repression, Kurds are understandably reluctant to accept Damascus’ rule. A federal arrangement could manage complex Arab-Kurdish relations, but Arab political culture considers federalism a partition in all but name. The Arab Sunni majority in the region was always suspicious of minority clamor for self-rule. And groups that did ask for it were frequently accused of trying to create a “second Israel.” The Lebanese Christians stand as a case in point in this regard. Turkey loathes an autonomous Kurdish region to emerge in Syria, and since it’s likely to become the new dominant outside actor in Syria now that Iran and its cronies—not only Assad but Hezbollah and Hamas—have suffered a crushing defeat in the region.  

This leads to the fourth and final important question: Can Syria again avoid becoming a playground for foreign powers? In the 1950s, Syria nearly imploded under the stress of the global Cold War, pitting the U.S. and the former Soviet Union against one another, and the Arab Cold War, involving Arab supporters of the Americans and the Soviets in a merciless struggle for regional supremacy. Until Hafez al-Asad stabilized Syria under his rule with an iron fist and a tilt toward Moscow, foreign interventions, whether they be international or regional, wreaked havoc in the country. Today, both Americans and Russians have military posts in Syria. Arabs look askance at Turkey’s gains. And Iranian allies, though battered, are positioned not too far away in Lebanon and Iraq. Can Syria be protected from the seemingly never-ending game of nations in the Middle East? 

The post Where Will Syria Go From Here? appeared first on Washington Monthly.

Amidst the suffering of bereaved families, of innocent people, the fate of the hostages, the despair of those forced to flee their homes, and the anxiety that hangs heavy in the air, I see most clearly the sweet face of B., aged nine months. She wears pink-rimmed plastic glasses and loves her rattle, which she shakes vigorously in her little fist. She is curious to know the world around her and never sleeps in the car; buckled in, she tries to sit upright in her seat, as beautiful and bright as can be. As I watch her in the rearview mirror, I recall the first line of Mahmoud Darwish’s stunning four-line poem, written almost a quarter of a century ago: 

She says: When will we meet?

B. lives in a small Palestinian village near Hebron. To receive lifesaving treatment for her medical condition, her mother brings her to an Israeli hospital near Tel Aviv. She makes her way through two or three checkpoints, switching cars halfway until Tarkumia checkpoint, where she is picked up by a volunteer with Road to Recovery. I was lucky enough to be that volunteer one morning. My other passengers, a mother and a four-year-old boy, were late. I helped arrange B. in her collapsible stroller in the back seat and leaned in to check the buckles were secure. She looked up at me and held out her rattle. On impulse, I got into the back seat. B. was in the middle, her mother on one side and I on the other. I tried to get B. to smile, but she wouldn’t, and her mother laughed and said she was a hard sell and I would have to try harder. We chatted together, a little Arabic and a little Hebrew, and for a few moments, we were just two women cooing over a baby as the sun stained the sky pink and a stray dog wandered over to the parking lot where we waited.

He says: A year after the war ends

That was Sunday morning. The evening before, I went to a solidarity meeting for families of hostages in Carmei Gat, about half an hour from my house. It’s less a demonstration and more a show of support for the families evacuated from two kibbutzim in the south. There’s less shouting here. There are fewer calls to get rid of Bibi Netanyahu; there are no drums or whistles so common at the parallel demonstrations taking place in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It’s a hot evening, even stifling. Here, almost everyone has lost a family member, a friend, a neighbor. Many of the people hid for hours on October 7 under beds, in bushes, in a safe room that was no longer safe. My friend from Kibbutz Beeri crouched behind a narrow door on the roof of his house with his wife. In the square at Carmei Gat, he greets me with a smile and a brief hug; he is far from recovering from the trauma.

At the end, the crowd of hundreds stands in silence while the names of hostages held by Hamas are read aloud. Every person has a name, a face. Finally, the number of days since October 7 is projected onto a huge screen, white on black. The numbers flash by. This week, they reached 357.

She says: When will the war end?

The people of Gaza are also counting the days. Last night, I spoke to a friend in Gaza, a talented writer who is reduced to living in a tent and who has lost dear ones in Israeli strikes. He is also counting the days.

He tells me he is tired, so tired.

What can we do? I ask. 

We have poetry, he says wearily.

He says: When we meet.

Sometimes, the two of us joke that we should meet. I imagine our meeting, wherever it might be—at a checkpoint, in a crowd, a car, a home. We’ll recognize each other right away. We’ll sit together, we’ll share photos, we’ll talk poetry.

I’m grateful for his continued friendship. I send him Wendell Berry’s “The Peace of Wild Things,” a poem that has helped me through some rough times. I hope it will bring him some comfort, and I hope Google Translate will not ruin it. In English, it begins like this:

When despair for the world grows in me,

And I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake rests…

You see, the heart is still capable of empathy for others.

People tell me I’m wrong, confused, that the children I take to hospital will grow up to be terrorists and will come back to kill me or my children. People tell me the Israeli hostages are mostly dead anyway, that the state of Israel takes precedence over everything. People tell me I am salving my guilty conscience, that my words are an attempt to soften the violence of genocide. People tell me that I’m too wrapped up in the personal and that I should focus on the entities of power and oppression. People tell me that the death of innocents is unavoidable in war. What happened to the sanctity of life? What happened to basic decency? There is nothing more precious than life itself.

In 1783, Benjamin Franklin famously wrote, in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, that there never was a good war or a bad peace. He wrote it soon after the end of the American Revolutionary War he nevertheless favored, after eight long years of economic depression and untold numbers of deaths from war, disease, and hardship. Franklin wanted to resume his foray into science; in a postscript, he enthused over a hot-air balloon released over the village of Annonay, France.

He waited a long time to get back on track.

And now, a year has gone. The killing in Gaza continues, and hostilities in the north have evolved into open war. As Rachel Goldberg, mother of Hersh, said recently, we must do better. Ask me why I don’t leave this country, why I don’t go back to the U.K., where I lived until I was sixteen, and I will tell you this: Walking away, leaving this broken world behind, is the easy way out. I’m here because I have something to do—hold out a hand, coax a smile from a baby.

The post When We Meet: Thoughts as the Mideast War Approaches Its Second Year appeared first on Washington Monthly.