I was glad to see that the Iran-US talks resumed. I do not expect anything of substance to come from them, but talking is better than shooting.
When all this started, several months ago, I noted that aerial bombing, by itself, never won a war. That is still true. In the current case, it allowed Iran to shift its main objective to simply surviving. As long as the regime remained in power, even without the original leaders, the declared objective of encouraging regime change would never happen. Now, President Trump is trapped into trying to find a way out of the quagmire he has dug for himself (and for Israel). The only real point to be discussed is keeping Iran out of the nuclear weapons club. The US has conceded that Iran can make long range missiles. Promoting proxy terror groups is not even going to make it on to the agenda. Hizbullah is willing to stop launching rockets in Lebanon (apparently in return for an Israeli withdrawal, from Lebanese territory). A separate agreement to that effect will, likely, be supported by the US. The people getting short shrift if that happens are Israel and Lebanon. And, as Trump has imperiously stated; Netanyahu will do what I tell him.
In Gaza, the agreement was made several months ago. But there is still no military or police presence to enforce Hamas to disarm, or supervise a transition to a non-Hamas government. The media isn’t talking about Gaza except for the radical socialist democrat candidates running in state primaries.
So, here we are, a couple of years on since the Hamas invasion. Has anything been achieved? I don’t think so. No one even mentioned the problem of the Gaza Arabs teaching their children an irrational and implacable hatred of Jews and Israel. unless that problem is solved, anything else will just amount to sweeping the whole mess under the rug, from which it will re-emerge later, accompanied by the same violence and lies.
Wetherhorn 