However fragile it may be, on Tuesday, Israel and Iran agreed to a “ceasefire” just three days after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran, which he claimed were “obliterated.”
Global markets welcomed this development and crude oil futures prices fell. Nevertheless, there are reasons to be skeptical about the prospects for a sustained ceasefire, which both sides already appear to have violated. The first is that the Iranian nuclear facilities might not have been “obliterated” as Trump claimed. In contradiction to the president, an initial U.S. intelligence report found that the bombings only delayed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions by a few months.
The second, more fundamental reason, to doubt Trump’s prospects for success in the Middle East is his growing inability to govern and lead as he becomes increasingly bogged down in quagmires both at home and abroad.
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