Dear MEPIN Readers,
This short interview examines tomorrow’s pivotal meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump—arguably the most consequential of the seven meetings between the two leaders over the past year.
At stake is whether Israel can persuade the president that a historic opportunity exists to fundamentally weaken, if not collapse, the Iranian regime, rather than settle for a narrow, nuclear-only agreement. Such an agreement could sidestep Iran’s growing ballistic missile threat, lift sanctions, and provide the regime with the financial oxygen it needs to survive.
Sanctions relief would further entrench a regime that has violently suppressed its own population, with tens of thousands of Iranian protestors reportedly killed and many more imprisoned, tortured, or assaulted. In negotiating with Tehran, we must remember that Iran remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, according to the U.S. State Department, with the blood of many Americans on its hands—most notoriously from the IEDs it supplied during the Iraq War, which left so many of our soldiers permanently disabled. — Eric