Stunning news today as European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borell announced a “pause” in the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna, citing “external factors.” Diplomats say this refers to the eleventh-hour demand by the Russians, one of the original JCPOA signatories, to relieve some of its sanctions over the Ukraine invasion in exchange for its support on a renewed deal.
Though the JCPOA has not been killed by these Russian demands, Moscow does have the ability to harm the United States by delaying the agreement at a crucial point of Washington’s vulnerability to high oil prices. It may also have the ability to pull the plug on the agreement as a whole by triggering snap-back sanctions in the UN Security Council or preventing the Joint Commission from adopting the decision to bring the US back into the deal. The snap-back option would of course create a very significant crisis between Tehran and Moscow.
In retrospect, the parties were clearly mistaken in thinking that Russia would continue to compartmentalize the JCPOA talks from its tensions with the West. The Ukraine crisis of 2014 did not undermine the JCPOA negotiations, but it is of course incomparable to the Ukraine crisis of 2022. It remains unclear, however, if the Russian objective is to delay the deal to undermine the West’s efforts to pressure Russia over Ukraine or to completely scuttle the deal.
Though Tehran has been tempered in its statements so far, it must clearly be angered by the Russian maneuvers. But Iran is stuck between two bad choices: Accepting the potential collapse of the deal and continued U.S. sanctions, or seeking a potential agreement with the U.S. outside of the JCPOA. The latter could dangerously increase tensions between Tehran and Moscow while making Iran dependent on the U.S. at a time when GOP officials have made it clear they will kill the JCPOA if they take the White House in 2024.
Hopefully, the deal can still be salvaged. But if it collapses on the goal line because of Russian sabotage, it further underscores the folly of Biden not going back to the deal via Executive Order on the first day of his presidency. No one could have predicted Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine as a factor, but many predicted that it would be unpredictably messy to negotiate a return.
Trita Parsi is the co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
A police officer stands outside the hotel where a meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission, or Iran nuclear deal, is held in Vienna, Austria, April 27, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger|A police officer stands outside the hotel where a meeting of the JCPOA Joint Commission, or Iran nuclear deal, is held in Vienna, Austria, April 27, 2021. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
Top photo credit: President Donald Trump speaks with members of the media at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on Sunday, September 7, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
President Donald Trump told reporters outside a Washington restaurant Tuesday evening that he is deeply displeased with Israel’s bombardment of Qatar, a close U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf that, at Washington’s request, has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012.
“I am not thrilled about it. I am not thrilled about the whole situation,” Trump said, denying that Israel had given him advance notice. “I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect of it,” he continued. “We’ve got to get the hostages back. But I was very unhappy with the way that went down.”
Trump may indeed be upset, but the Israeli Prime Minister is casting him in the same light as Biden: issuing indignant statements over Israeli actions that blatantly undermine U.S. interests, actions that almost certainly could not have occurred without Washington’s tacit consent, while offering no hint that Israel will face consequences for allegedly defying the United States.
To make matters worse, Qatar’s foreign minister revealed that Washington’s so-called warning came not before the Israeli strike, but only after Doha was already under fire.
“The attack happened at 3:46,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani said. “The first call we had from an American official was at 3:56 — which is 10 minutes after the attack.”
Whether Washington knew of Israel’s war plans, colluded in them, or whether Trump is truthful in claiming ignorance, the outcome is the same: Israel has dealt a severe blow to American credibility.
What value does an American security umbrella—or even the hosting of a U.S. base—hold if the United States either conspires in an attack against you, or proves unwilling or unable to prevent one?
That is the question now confronting every U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf, all of whom have staked their survival on American protection. Given how Washington has stripped away every meaningful constraint on Israel since October 7, 2023, their leaders should have known this day was inevitable.
Personally, I do not believe the United States should extend security guarantees — implicit or explicit — to any state in the Middle East. The region is no longer vital to U.S. interests, and America is already dangerously overextended. Existing commitments should be reassessed and, where necessary, rolled back. But this must be done deliberately and on Washington’s terms — not sabotaged by Israel — because the point of the exercise goal is to strengthen the credibility of America’s essential commitments, not to erode U.S. credibility across the board.
Adding insult to injury, Israel has undercut not only the credibility of America’s security guarantees but also its diplomatic standing. This marks the second time this year that Israel has exploited the cover of U.S.-led diplomacy to launch unlawful military action — the first being its strike on Iran in the midst of nuclear talks in June.
Israel may see clear advantages in eroding the credibility of American diplomacy. An America unable to negotiate is an America forced to follow Israel’s lead into reckless military adventures that run counter to U.S. interests. For Washington, this is nothing short of disastrous.
The question now is how Trump will respond. If his claim is true — that he neither received a heads-up nor colluded with Israel — then expressions of displeasure are meaningless unless paired with real consequences for Israel’s repeated sabotage of U.S. interests.
Since late May, Trump has capitulated to Netanyahu on virtually every front — from Iran to Gaza to Lebanon — consistently at America’s expense. This humiliating deference has only emboldened Netanyahu, making him ever more dismissive of Trump and U.S. priorities, culminating in the brazen strike on Doha.
Perhaps this episode will force Trump to recognize the folly of outsourcing American policy in the Middle East to Israel. Only he has the power to reverse course.
Top image credit: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, President of Ukraine, Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the UK, and Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland, emerge from St. Mary's Palace for a press conference as part of the Coalition of the Willing meeting in Kiev, May 10 2025, Kay Nietfeld/dpa via Reuters Connect
After last week’s meeting of the “coalition of the willing” in Paris, 26 countries have supposedly agreed to contribute — in some fashion — to a military force that would be deployed on Ukrainian soil after hostilities have concluded.
Three weeks prior, at the Anchorage leaders’ summit press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Ukraine’s security should be ensured as part of any negotiated settlement. But Russian officials have continued to reiterate that this cannot take the form of Western combat forces stationed in Ukraine. In the wake of last week’s meeting, Putin has upped the ante by declaring that any such troops would be legitimate targets for the Russian military.
The question remains why European leaders persist with plans that, if implemented, risk putting them directly at war with the world’s largest nuclear power. The answer appears concerning.
One possibility is the credibility of Russian pronouncements. Putin engaged in nuclear signalling earlier in this war — most notably when the full-scale invasion was launched and again after facing military setbacks in the autumn of 2022. Although such signals may have succeeded in deterring the West from intervening directly in the war, the perception that Western countries could transgress supposed Russian red lines without incurring a nuclear response may have diminished the deterrent power of subsequent threats.
Another is the West’s longstanding normative approach to questions of security in Europe since the end of the Cold War. This view, expressed just days ago by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, insists that Moscow can have no veto over Kyiv’s sovereign right to accept foreign troops on its soil. The right of states to choose their own security arrangements freely, a principle outlined in the Charter of Paris that marked the de facto end of the Cold War, is often cited in support of this worldview.
Of course, the citing of principles at one another did little to stop Russia from taking matters into its own hands in February 2022. Previous efforts to deny Russia a veto on principle, such as the 2008 NATO Bucharest summit at which Ukraine and Georgia were invited to join the alliance, foreshadowed Russia’s invasion of Georgia just months later. Staunch defenders of the “right to choose” also conveniently ignore the principle of indivisible security, also found in the Paris Charter, asserting that no state should take measures to increase its own security at the expense of another state’s security. They also de-emphasize the fact that Ukraine’s eventual NATO membership is primarily a matter for existing NATO members, and not Kyiv, to decide.
These considerations aside, what is the strategic thinking behind the European approach?
Despite proposals to the contrary by some, any reassurance force would only be deployed to Ukraine after the war has ended. So unless plans currently under consideration are meant to be a mere opening salvo in negotiations with Moscow, insisting that a Western military presence on Ukrainian soil will emerge as soon as a ceasefire takes hold provides Russia with every incentive to continue fighting to prevent such an outcome from materializing. Therefore, continued insistence that such a force will take shape in the face of repeated Russian objections suggests that European calls for a ceasefire are not entirely genuine.
Indeed, European leaders did not voice their support for ending the war before Donald Trump assumed office — they only began doing so once Trump had cajoled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into calling for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, leaving them with little option but to fall in line given Europe’s heavy dependence on the U.S. for its security. (Since Russia will never accept an unconditional ceasefire before its political objectives have been met, calling for one also serves the tactical purpose of painting Moscow — not altogether unfairly, of course — as the main obstacle to peace.)
With these facts in mind, European calls for a ceasefire appear to be rooted not in conviction but rather convenience. The real purpose of the coalition’s ongoing plans for a postwar troop deployment to Ukraine may be to sabotage the possibility of successfully negotiating an end to the war. This would fit with other aspects of the current European approach, for example threatening more sanctions against Russia but not putting forward any realistic offer of sanctions relief as an incentive.
This conclusion should not be surprising. Although Ukraine may be gradually losing on the battlefield, today’s European elite largely believes that a “bad deal” to end the war would be worse than the war continuing.
Perhaps Europeans believe that Ukraine will be able to hold the line long enough for Russian casualties to mount and the Russian economy to melt. Or perhaps they fear the perceived loss of status that may flow from a climbdown and compromise peace with Russia. More cynically, even if Russia breaks through Ukrainian lines, this could strengthen European unity and finally get European publics on board for higher defense spending — and Moscow will not be able to rule a restive Ukraine in any event.
European leaders should think twice before doubling down on this logic. The recently announced memorandum of understanding on the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, if implemented, could consolidate Russia’s pivot to China over the long term by shipping gas from Western Siberia which might otherwise have been destined for European markets. Besides the risks of military escalation, a prolonged war and the attendant rupture in economic relations between Russia and the rest of Europe could breed strategic consequences that are not yet set in stone — and would best be avoided.
Russia will be an adversary of the collective West for the foreseeable future. But succeeding in a multipolar world requires creating the strategic space to engage with all power poles at least to some degree. A world of rigid blocs need not be a self-fulfilling prophecy — and would undermine the survival of a “rules-based international order” to a much greater extent than deferring disagreements over Ukraine’s territorial integrity and beginning the arduous task of rebuilding a shared sense of security in Europe.
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Top photo credit: The Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, is standing third from the left in the front row, alongside the Minister of Culture of Qatar, Abdulrahman bin Hamad bin Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, who is at the center, and the Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth of Oman, Sayyid Theyazin bin Haitham Al Said, who is second from the right in Doha, Qatar, on May 9, 2024. (Photo by Noushad Thekkayil/NurPhoto)
On Tuesday, Israel bombed Doha, killing at least five Hamas staffers and a member of Qatari security. Israeli officials initially claimed the US green-lit the operation, despite Qatar hosting the largest U.S. military in the region.
The White House has since contradicted that version of events, saying the White House was given notice “just before” the bombing and claiming the strike was an “unfortunate" attack that "could serve as an opportunity for peace.”
The fallout from the bombing is still unclear, but the U.S. decision to merely chalk up Israel’s attack on a major non-NATO ally to an “unfortunate” attack should at least put to rest one persistent myth: that the Qatar lobby holds more sway over the U.S. than the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
The “Qatar lobby” is oftentimes invoked as an epithet by pro-Israel hawks to explain away why Americans are suddenly skeptical about Washington's support for Israel. In an August interview, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Qatar has “spent billions on American universities, vilifying, vilifying Israel, vilifying Jews, and also, frankly, vilifying the United States.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently blamed Qatar for what he claimed was an increase in antisemitism among the American conservative commentariat. They “spent billions on American universities, vilifying, vilifying Israel, vilifying Jews, and also, frankly, vilifying the United States…and all that was left to accumulate primarily in academia, you know, and from there, it sort of distributes itself elsewhere,” Netanyahu argued.
In this, Netanyahu was parroting a trope spread by pro-Israel — and some Israeli government funded — organizations that shifts the blame for nationwide pro-Palestine protests away from the Israeli military’s civilian slaughter and forced starvation in Gaza to Qatar, which allegedly has pushed U.S. college students down a path of raging antisemitism.
The problem with this story is that, while Qatar has spent billions of dollars on American universities, nearly all of that money has gone to American universities within Qatar. In fact, more than 90% of Qatar’s more than $6 billion in higher education funding has explicitly been earmarked to fund higher education in Qatar, where American college students are a distinct minority at schools overwhelmingly filled with Qatari’s and expats living in the country.
Undeterred by this simple fact, Netanyahu and pro-Israel groups have continued to spread the tale that Qatar’s higher education spending is driving students on U.S. college campuses down an antisemitic road. Perhaps no organization has done this more often than the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism (ISGAP). The institute’s scholars have repeatedly testified to Congress about Qatari funding causing antisemitism, despite ampleevidence that their research on this topic is, at best, flawed.
Just as importantly, the organization has not publicly disclosed that it had been funded by the Israeli government as recently as 2020.
This exemplifies the inherent contradiction of Qatar’s influence in America: While the Middle East monarchy does have enormous influence in America its alleged omnipresence is often wildly exaggerated by Qatar’s critics.
Nick Cleveland-Stout and I sought to demystify Qatar’s influence in America in our just-released Quincy Institute brief, “Qatar’s Influence in America.” We found that in just eight years — after being nearly invaded by then rivals Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — Qatar has transformed from something of an afterthought in the influence game to one of the biggest players around.
Just consider the highlights of this massive operation that we document in the brief:
Qatar currently has more than two dozen Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) registered lobbying and public relations firms working for them.
Scores of revolving door all-stars have been lobbying for the Qatari’s, headlined by former representatives Tom Davis (R-Va.), Jim Moran (D-Va.), Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.), and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.).
No country’s lobbyists report more in-person meetings with policymakers than Qatar.
Qatar is the third most generous foreign donor to think tanks in the U.S.
Multiple Trump administration officials have previously worked for Qatar, including Lee Zeldin, the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency and Kash Patel the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Patel’s boss–Attorney General Pam Bondi–was a registered foreign agent for Qatar until 2021.
Trump’s family and companies have also inked billions of dollars in deals with the Qatari’s. And, of course, Qatar gifted the President a luxury jumbo-jet dubbed “the Palace in the Sky.”
At the same time, Qatar has been doing a lot of things that are quite beneficial for U.S. interests, most notably serving as a mediator for conflicts around the world, including in Afghanistan, Congo, Darfur, Lebanon, Yemen, and, of course, Gaza. All of this led The Guardian to dub Qatar “The global capital of diplomacy.” Our analysis of all FARA reported political activities conducted by Qatar’s lobbyists since the Israel-Gaza war began revealed that Qatar’s lobbyists spend much of their time touting Qatar’s mediator prowess and sending a clear, yet unspoken, message: while Israel is dragging the U.S. into wars, Qatar is trying to end them.
For instance, a one-pager distributed to media contacts by GRV Strategies, on behalf of Qatar, states that “Over the past year, Qatar has worked tirelessly with the United States, Egypt, and other international partners to de-escalate the crisis in Gaza, mediating between Israel and Hamas to try to end the bloodshed, ensure humanitarian aid reaches innocent Palestinian civilians, and secure the release of hostages.” Another Qatari firm, Lumen8 Advisors, facilitated Qatar’s Prime Minister appearing on Tucker Carlson in a segment entitled, “War With Iran? The Prime Minister of Qatar Is Being Attacked in the Media for Wanting to Stop It.”
Carlson was far from the first conservative commentator Qatar’s lobbyists and public relations firms have courted. As early as 2017, Qatar’s agents have been targeting MAGA influencers, with one of the architects of Qatar’s influencer campaign explaining to the Wall Street Journal that, “We want to create a campaign where we are getting into his [Trump’s] head as much as possible.” This is at least partially why Netanyahu’s disdain for Qatari influence overlaps with his aggressive attacks on any conservative that doesn’t recommend unflinching U.S. support for Israel.
Despite Netanyahu and pro-Israel groups’ attacks, however, more and more conservatives are publicly speaking out against Israel’s war on Gaza and questioning how Israel fits into the “America First” mantra. Just last week, for example, at a National Conservatism Conference panel, Curt Mills, editor of The American Conservative, argued, “Why are these our wars? Why are Israel's endless problems America's liabilities?...Why should we accept America First — asterisk Israel? And the answer is, we shouldn't.”
Yet, while there’s currently significant alignment between U.S. interests and Qatar’s interests — namely peace and stability (i.e. not letting Israel pull the U.S. into wars) — this isn’t cause for ignoring Qatar’s influence in the U.S. As we write in the brief, “Qatar’s unprecedented access to and influence of Trump, at the very least, presents a risk of the President putting personal gain over national gain when it comes to Qatar.” While their efforts did not help stave off an attack from the more influential Israel, that is no reason not to keep a watchful eye on Qatari influence in America.
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