Follow us on social

Morgan Ortagus

Another one bites the dust: Iran hawks disappearing from admin

Lebanon envoy Morgan Ortagus and a 'slew' of national security officials are being replaced in Trump White House

Analysis | QiOSK

Word is that Israel is getting a bit nervous as one after the other, Iran hawks are being shuffled out of key foreign policy and national security positions in the White House.

Meanwhile, "America First" realists continue to be in ascent.

According to news in the last 24 hours, Eric Trager, who was heading the Middle East and North Africa portfolios for the National Security Council, has been removed from his position. Trager, who is the former Esther K. Wagner Fellow at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is considered an Iran hawk and was appointed to the post by Mike Waltz.

Morgan Ortagus, considered one of the "strongest pro-Israel supporters in the administration," was also shuffled out of her role as the Lebanon envoy under Steve Witkoff. Her removal from the position, which had been hinted in recent days, "stunned officials in Jerusalem, where she is viewed as closely aligned with Israel interests," according to YNet News. Her Lebanon trip this week was reportedly canceled and she would have no further role on Witkoff's team.

News of the "purge" began last week when it was also announced that a number of NSC officials were being let go by acting national security adviser Marco Rubio in a broader effort to drastically slim down what the administration sees as a bloated and inefficient agency. Most of the targets were not identified at the time, but we now know they included dual U.S.-Israeli citizen Merav Ceren, who was working the Iran and Israel desk and had previously worked with the Israel government.

Observers point out that all of these changes are coming amid stepped-up Trump Middle East policy, where he is at once trying to get a nuclear deal hammered out with Iran, withdraw troops from a new Syria, and make deals with partners in the Gulf. His frustration with Benjamin Netanyahu over Gaza and his insistence on a military approach to Iran has spilled over into the press in recent weeks. His firing of Waltz in early May was reportedly in part because Waltz had been talking about war plans with Netanyahu behind Trump's back.

“Trump’s foreign policy team is undergoing a course correction in keeping with his own pivot,” Marwa Maziad, a professor of Israeli politics at the University of Maryland, told Middle East Eye.

Meanwhile, the realists seem to be gaining more traction in the Trump orbit. Justin Overbaugh, nominee for Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, is expected to be confirmed by the Senate after little resistance from key committees in Congress. A retired Army colonel with service in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Overbaugh is a former Defense Priorities fellow.


Top photo credit: Morgan Ortagus ( Minority Reporters/Creative Commons)
Analysis | QiOSK
Rand Paul Donald Trump
Top photo credit: Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) (Shutterstock/Mark Reinstein) and President Trump (White House/Molly Riley)

Rand Paul to Trump: Don't 'abandon' MAGA over Maduro regime change

Washington Politics

Sen. Rand Paul said on Friday that “all hell could break loose” within Donald Trump’s MAGA coalition if the president involves the U.S. further in Ukraine, and added that his supporters who voted for him after 20 years of regime change wars would "feel abandoned" if he went to war and tried to topple Nicolas Maduro, too.

President Trump has been getting criticism from some of his supporters for vowing to release the files of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and then reneging on that promise. Paul said that the Epstein heat Trump is getting from MAGA will be nothing compared to if he refuses to live up to his “America First” foreign policy promises.

keep readingShow less
Trump ASEAN
Top photo credit: U.S. President Donald Trump looks at Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., next to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim when posing for a family photo with leaders at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, October 26, 2025. Vincent Thian/Pool via REUTERS

‘America First’ meets ‘ASEAN Way’ in Kuala Lumpur

Asia-Pacific

The 2025 ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Kuala Lumpur beginning today are set to be consequential multilateral gatherings — defining not only ASEAN’s internal cohesion but also the shape of U.S.–China relations in the Indo-Pacific.

President Donald Trump’s participation will be the first by a U.S. president in an ASEAN-led summit since 2022. President Biden skipped the last two such summits in 2023 and 2024, sending then-Vice President Harris instead.

keep readingShow less
iran, china, russia
Top photo credit: Top image credit: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi shake hands as Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu looks on during their meet with reporters after their meeting at Diaoyutai State Guest House on March 14, 2025 in Beijing, China. Lintao Zhang/Pool via REUTERS

'Annulled'! Russia won't abide snapback sanctions on Iran

Middle East

“A raider attack on the U.N. Security Council.” This was the explosive accusation leveled by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov this week. His target was the U.N. Secretariat and Western powers, whom he blamed for what Russia sees as an illegitimate attempt to restore the nuclear-related international sanctions on Iran.

Beyond the fiery rhetoric, Ryabkov’s statement contained a message: Russia, he said, now considers all pre-2015 U.N. sanctions on Iran, snapped back by the European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) — the United Kingdom, France, Germany — “annulled.” Moscow will deepen its military-technical cooperation with Tehran accordingly, according to Ryabkov.

This is more than a diplomatic spat; it is the formal announcement of a split in international legal reality. The world’s major powers are now operating under two irreconcilable interpretations of international law. On one side, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany assert that the sanctions snapback mechanism of the JCPOA was legitimately triggered for Iran’s alleged violations. On the other, Iran, Russia, and China reject this as an illegitimate procedural act.

This schism was not inevitable, and its origin reveals a profound incongruence. The Western powers that most frequently appeal to the sanctity of the "rules-based international order" and international law have, in this instance, taken an action whose effects fundamentally undermine it. By pushing through a legal maneuver that a significant part of the Security Council considers illegitimate, they have ushered the world into a new and more dangerous state. The predictable, if imperfect, framework of universally recognized Security Council decisions is being replaced by a system where legal facts are determined by political interests espoused by competing power blocs.

This rupture followed a deliberate Western choice to reject compromises in a stand-off with Iran. While Iran was in a technical violation of the provisions of the JCPOA — by, notably, amassing a stockpile of highly enriched uranium (up to 60% as opposed to the 3.67% for a civilian use permissible under the JCPOA), there was a chance to avert the crisis. In the critical weeks leading to the snapback, Iran had signaled concessions in talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Cairo, in terms of renewing cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s inspectors.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.