President Trump's Options To Push Back Iran Are Limited

U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to travel to Palm Beach, Florida from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Washington Post: Trump wants to push back against Iran, but Iran is now more powerful than ever

BEIRUT — President Trump’s tough talk on Iran is winning him friends in the Arab world, but it also carries a significant risk of conflict with a U.S. rival that is now more powerful than at any point since the creation of the Islamic republic nearly 40 years ago.

With its warning last week that Iran is “on notice,” the Trump administration signaled a sharp departure from the policies of President Obama, whose focus on pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran eclipsed historic U.S. concerns about Iranian expansionism and heralded a rare period of detente between Washington and Tehran.

Many in the region are now predicting a return to the tensions of the George W. Bush era, when U.S. and Iranian operatives fought a shadow war in Iraq, Sunni-Shiite tensions soared across the region and America’s ally Israel fought a brutal war with Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

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WNU Editor: The U.S. focus should be on destroying the Islamic State .... which President Trump has more than once signalled is his priority. As to Iran .... it is very dangerous top get sucked into a Sunni-Shiite/Arab-Persian conflict that has been ongoing for centuries, and I can only hope that the White House knows that and will proceed with extreme caution. As for Iran being more powerful than ever .... I am not sure about that claim. From my perspective they are stretched, and they are now committed to directly fighting wars in Syria and Iraq that give the appearance that they will never end.