News – The Institute for a Secure America

Will Trump TACO on Iran?

June 11, 2025

The world is undeniably close to learning whether Iran can yet again out-negotiate and out-last feckless Western politicians and save its nuclear-weapons program. On June 5, Donald Trump said(https://www.axios.com/2025/06/04/iran-nuclear-deal-trump) Iran was “slow-walking” nuclear negotiations with the United States. His two-month time limit to the Ayatollah Khamenei has either expired already or soon will(https://www.axios.com/2025/03/19/trump-letter-iran-nuclear-deal). The moment […]

Why Trump stopped listening to Netanyahu

June 06, 2025

Donald Trump was widely seen in his first term as a knee-jerk defender of Israel. Not so now. Whether and how far Washington splits from Jerusalem, especially on Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, has enormous security implications for America, Israel, and the wider Middle East. For Trump, personal relationships with foreign heads of government equate to the […]

What is required of Sharia to obtain full American recognition

May 26, 2025

Donald Trump’s just-concluded Middle East visit produced considerable press coverage for the business deals and investments he and his counterparts announced. The visit’s biggest news, however, was his declaration that the United States would lift economic sanctions on Syria imposed during the Assad regime. Trump said in Riyadh(https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-starts-gulf-visit-seeking-big-economic-deals-2025-05-13/), “Oh what I do for the crown […]

Starmer’s turn against Israel will prolong war

May 26, 2025

Removing the ayatollahs in Iran is the only route to securing longterm peace in Gaza Israel is now grappling with possibly the last phases of eliminating the Hamas terrorist threat. Instead of support from a unified West determined to extirpate terrorism, however, Jerusalem is under attack for attempting exactly that. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said […]

Will Trump Blow Up the National Security Council?

May 19, 2025

President Trump is reportedly considering(https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/rubio-working-major-changes-national-security-council-rcna206658) major alterations to the National Security Advisor’s role and the National Security Council staff. One administration source said(https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/politics/rubio-national-security-council-overhaul) the “NSC as we know it is done.” The potential changes center apparently on reducing the staff and its responsibility for developing and coordinating policy formulation, particularly long-range policy, and making it […]

John Bolton: ‘The term chaos is commonly used to describe the top of the Defense Department’

May 07, 2025

The Signal chat group created by US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to discuss imminent strikes targeting Houthi terrorists in Yemen in March ultimately cost him his job. Waltz’s misjudgment exposed the Trump administration to substantial domestic political criticism at a difficult time and shocked friends and allies of the United States worldwide. Other errors […]

Chaos Is Embedded in Trump’s DNA

May 06, 2025

His pinball-machine style hinges on his advisers’ personal fealty. This will mean more trouble ahead. Donald Trump’s chaotic national-security governance is in full flood. Whether it’s risking American military operations, making volatile, highly dubious tariff decisions, hiring uninformed senior advisers, or seeing senior government officials dissenting from presidential decisions, the disarray is palpable and likely […]

Putin certainly sees Trump as an easy mark

April 29, 2025

Judging a US president’s first hundred days began with Franklin Roosevelt. For Donald Trump, however, certainly on national-security issues, comparison to Napoleon’s hundred-days campaign may be more apt, ending as it did in disaster for both the emperor and France. Trump’s indifference to Ukraine and his conciliatory approach toward Russia are only one of several […]

Ukraine, Trump and the Middle East

April 22, 2025

Donald Trump’s jarring Oval Office confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky symbolizes what is wrong with Trump’s dysfunctional approach to foreign policy. In what seemed like a television comedy show, Trump accused Zelensky of everything from risking World War III to having no cards to play in defending his homeland from Russia’s unprovoked aggression. Trump […]

What Next After Rome?

April 22, 2025

No one was more surprised than Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu when he learned of Donald Trump’s intention to reopen negotiations with Iran over its nuclear-weapons program. At an April 7 meeting in Washington, Netanyahu almost certainly expected to move forward on plans for a potential Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs, perhaps […]