Sydney Stein Scholar, Brookings. White House, NSC, and State in Biden, Obama and Clinton admins. Author, Losing the Long Game.
Joined January 2025
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Administration has settled on "no money will exchange hands" as way to paper over unfreezing assets and Iranian oil sales, and "at an appropriate time" as way to paper over lack of agreement to remove HEU. This deal is going to test Trump's salesmanship even with his own base.
Trump on Truth Social: Barack Hussein Obama’s Deal with Iran, the JCPOA, was an easy, beautiful, smooth road to a Nuclear Weapon, which Iran would have had six years ago, and would have used long before now. My Agreement with Iran is the exact opposite, A WALL TO NO NUCLEAR WEAPON! In fact, they no longer want a Nuclear Weapon, nor will they have one, either through purchase, development, or any other form of procurement. The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL. Our relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had. Unlike Obama’s Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in payments to them, including 1.7 Billion Dollars in green, cold cash, no money will exchange hands. At the appropriate time, when all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust, buried deep under the powerful sunken granite mountains, thanks to our beautiful B-2 Bombers and their brilliant pilots, and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran, or the United States. We look forward to working with Iran, and the entire Middle East, long into the future. Hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly. If it doesn’t, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again! Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!
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"Should Reform win a majority in the next parliamentary election, Britain would have a government led by the very party most responsible for the discontent that brought it to power, and more determined to 'complete' Brexit than reverse it."
A decade after a narrow majority of British voters opted to take the country out of the EU, "no one is very happy with Brexit's results." My review of Anthony Seldon's excellent new book in the FT.
ft.com/content/e8420e83-2469…
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A decade after a narrow majority of British voters opted to take the country out of the EU, "no one is very happy with Brexit's results." My review of Anthony Seldon's excellent new book in the FT.
ft.com/content/e8420e83-2469…
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Jun 12
Obviously have to wait and see actual details of any deal but if it's anything close to this it is no wonder Trump has been so reluctant to agree to it.
-Iran has made pledge not to acquire nuclear weapons many times, including in the JCPOA.
-The Strait was already open without tolls before the war.
-Iran was already negotiating over HEU and centrifuges before the war.
-Unfrozen assets and licenses to sell oil, even if initially limited, will provide regime revenue it didn't have before the war.
--The only way to get agreement on the nuclear issues will be to provide (significantly) more economic relief.
-The deal does not address ballistic missiles or proxies--for which the JCPOA was heavily criticized.
-In fact it depends on Israel *not* attacking Hezbollah.
-Nor does it free American detainees (which was at least a meaningful tradeoff for the "pallets of cash" that were in any case a fraction of the economic relief Trump will give Iran.)
-Far from helping Iranian protestors, as Trump pledged, the deal leaves them in an impoverished country and in the hands of a vengeful and repressive regime.
These are not reasons to oppose a deal that would provide a chance to end the war and open the Strait but they underscore how badly the war has backfired and explain why Trump has been so hesitant to end it on these terms.
Jun 12
📜🇺🇸🇮🇷What's in the Iran deal Trump says he's ready to sign. A diplomat involved in the mediation walked me through the latest draft & said "the U.S. & Iran have agreed on the text of a deal" but noted it still needs final sign-off. My story on @axios
axios.com/2026/06/12/iran-de…
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Jun 11
Trump may have given his commitment to Netanyahu that all of those things will be in the final agreement, but Iran has not given its commitment to Trump that they will be. The latter point is more meaningful than the former.
The Prime Minister’s Office:
President Trump spoke this evening with Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding the emerging memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to enter into negotiations.
Even though Israel is not a party to the memorandum of understanding, the Prime Minister expressed his appreciation for President Trump's commitment that the final agreement at the conclusion of negotiations will include the removal of enriched material, the dismantling of enrichment infrastructure, limits on missile production, and the cessation of Iran's support for its terrorist proxies in the region.
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Phil Gordon retweeted
By launching the Iran war, President Trump has inadvertently "replaced a cautious, elderly, and unpopular Iranian supreme leader in his twilight years with a vengeful, hardline, and even more mistrustful military-dominated regime," writes @philgordondc: brook.gs/440OF9i
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Jun 10
The wind has been blowing in that same direction for the 2 months since Trump agreed to a ceasefire. He knows he needs a deal but the problem is that Iran knows that too, so the terms aren't getting any better, and costs continue to mount.
Tehran doesn't need @Axios's great reporting to understand which way the wind is blowing. The unfortunate reality is that Trump is right to push hard for a deal; all the alternatives are profoundly suboptimal for the US. We're not going to bluff our way out of this stalemate.
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Jun 9
"It would be premature to succumb to the fatalistic conclusion that there is no hope for more principled and reliable U.S. leadership after Trump, whose policies are now reminding many Americans what they lose when such leadership is abandoned."
foreignaffairs.com/united-st…
Don’t Give Up on Global Order
America depends on global order—and can restore it.
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Phil Gordon retweeted
“If the price of getting Europeans to spend more is a collapse in deterrence and an end of the meaning of Article 5, you have not made anybody more secure—and you’ve made war more likely,” says @PhilGordonDC.
foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/…
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Jun 5
Telling that even strong supporters of the war reduced to recommending "minimizing America's losses," preventing the "failure at Hormuz from turning into a rout," and "waiting them out." Such a pivot away from original war aims a powerful indictment of the war itself.
The U.S. needs its mideast bases. If America won’t finish the job in Iran, leaving the Gulf Arab states would turn a failure into a rout, write Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh
on.wsj.com/4dRZXT6
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Jun 4
If this is the best independent case for the war unsurprising so many Americans oppose it. Long list of costs and unintended consequences go unmentioned, risk of leaving unmonitored nuclear material in Iran downplayed, and very hard to explain why, if Iran is so "weak" and leverage over Strait so "limited," admin is gearing up to give Iran billions in sanctions relief just to re-open it.
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Jun 4
U.S. allies around the world are finally starting to take seriously the need to develop a "Plan B." Great to discuss this--as well as Ukraine, Taiwan, NATO, and Iran--with friend and co-author Mara Karlin.
Listen to the latest episode of “The Foreign Affairs Interview,” featuring @PhilGordonDC and Mara Karlin in conversation with editor @dankurtzphelan:
foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/…
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May 31
Exactly, there was Congressional opposition and legal requirement for Congressional review, Iranian demands on sequencing sanctions relief before compliance (partly driven by Trump’s reckless withdrawal), Iran’s demand that IAEA end investigation of enriched uranium traces at undeclared sites per US and EU legitimate demands, Iranian demands to lift non-nuclear sanctions (some of which Trump had imposed deliberately to make rejoining deal harder), Iran’s rejection of August 2022 draft agreement—followed by regime’s killing of Mahsa Amini and other protesters, revelations of Iranian plotting to kill US officials, Iran’s supplying of military materiel used in Russia's aggression against Ukraine, and finally October 7, all of which made returning to the deal and lifting sanctions on Iran even more politically difficult. You can regret or legitimately criticize Biden’s unwillingness to take on this opposition sooner without giving Iran a total pass or equating Biden’s approach with Trump’s.
May 31
For better or worse, Biden came into office seeking a deal revival, longer and stronger and offering talks. Sure, there was some hesitation early on which didn’t help. But to call the Biden approach similar to Trump’s is ridiculous. Iran move to 60% was pre planned and reckless.
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May 30
I agree Biden should have done more to try to re-join the JCPOA in 2021 and argued that internally at the time and publicly since. But this take is way too simple, overlooks Iran's role, and wrongly equates Biden’s overly cautious approach with Trump’s “maximum pressure and demanding surrender from Iran.” Trump bears full responsibility for recklessly leaving the JCPOA in the first place and for the catastrophic war that he waged when he failed to get the "better deal" he promised.
May 30
Well, the Biden administration had the opportunity to do a deal in its first six months in office but it decided to double down on Trump’s maximum pressure strategy. Back then the WH thought Trump’s maximum pressure and demanding surrender from Iran was a great idea. They wished they had come up with it. It realized too late (and after the Iran realized Biden was no different from Trump and went to 60%) that was a mistake. The Biden team is very responsible for the mess Iran’s nuclear issue has become.
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