President Trump sacked his national security adviser Mike Waltz because he was working with a foreign leader to push the United States to attack Iran, according to a new report in the Washington Post.
The Post reports that while including a journalist on a Signal chat about plans to attack Yemen’s Houthis sealed Waltz’s fate, Waltz initially “upset” Trump during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s White House visit in February when he “appeared to share the Israeli leader’s conviction that the time was ripe to strike Iran”:
Waltz appeared to have engaged in intense coordination with Netanyahu about military options against Iran ahead of an Oval Office meeting between the Israeli leader and Trump, the two people said.
Waltz “wanted to take U.S. policy in a direction Trump wasn’t comfortable with because the U.S. hadn’t attempted a diplomatic solution,” according to one of the people.
“It got back to Trump and the president wasn’t happy with it,” that person said. [...]
The view by some in the administration was that Waltz was trying to tip the scales in favor of military action and was operating hand in glove with the Israelis.
“If Jim Baker was doing a side deal with the Saudis to subvert George H.W. Bush, you’d be fired,” a Trump adviser said, referring to Bush’s secretary of state. “You can’t do that. You work for the president of your country, not a president of another country.”
Since Trump announced that he would engage in serious negotiations with Iranian leaders to place limits on Iran’s nuclear program, an intense battle is being waged between the president’s more loyal supporters who favor diplomatic engagement with countries like Iran, Russia, and North Korea, and the more traditional wing of the Republican Party and neoconservatives, who don’t want a deal with Iran and are instead pushing for war.
Some of these battles surfaced before talks began, for example during the nominating process, when establishmentarians vigorously opposed more restraint oriented nominees like Tulsi Gabbard and Elbridge Colby. While their nominations ultimately succeeded, Waltz’s ouster is another sign that perhaps the hawks in Washington and their allies abroad may not have the juice they once had in keeping the United States on permanent war footing.
Ben Armbruster is the Managing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He has more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of politics, foreign policy, and media. Ben previously held senior editorial and management positions at Media Matters, ThinkProgress, ReThink Media, and Win Without War.
Steve Witkoff and Mike Waltz shake hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (White House Flickr)
Top image credit: A man walks with a Syrian flag, after powerful airstrikes shook Damascus on Wednesday, targeting the defense ministry, as Israel vowed to destroy Syrian government forces attacking Druze communities in southern Syria and demanded their withdrawal, in Damascus July 16, 2025. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Just days before Israeli F-35s screamed over Damascus, the improbable seemed within reach. U.S. Special Envoy Tom Barrack, leveraging his dual role as Ambassador to Turkey and point man on Syria, was brokering painstaking back-channel talks between two historic enemies.
The Syrian government, led by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former Islamist militant turned statesman, signaled openness to a non-aggression pact with Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar publicly welcomed Syria into “the peace and normalization circle in the Middle East.”
By July 12, leaks suggested a deal was drawing closer: al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, forced to move quickly in exchange for much needed security guarantees, reconstruction aid and investment, had reportedly met directly with Israeli officials in Azerbaijan. In his ongoing quest for a Nobel Peace Prize, U.S. President Donald Trump had personally met al-Sharaa in Riyadh and thereafter started dismantling decades of sanctions, betting big on Syria’s rehabilitation and regional integration.
Central to this U.S. vision was the consolidation of a stable, unitary Syrian state. Barrack is spearheading this arduous task, working to dismantle potential sources of fragmentation. Currently, his most critical, and contentious mission is the merger of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — America’s ground allies against ISIS — into the nascent Syrian national army. Barrack’s message to SDF commander Mazloum Abdi during tense Damascus meetings earlier this month was uncompromising: “One country, one army, one people.”
Barrack bluntly dismissed Kurdish demands for federalism or autonomous military structures as unworkable and destabilizing, arguing “in all of these countries what we learned is federalism doesn't work.”
This drive for a unified military command is the bedrock of U.S. strategy to prevent Syria’s balkanization and create a viable partner for regional peace, including normalization with Israel.
The eruption of violence in Syria’s Druze heartland of Suwayda on July 11 provided Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the perfect catalyst to derail this fragile progress.
When clashes broke out between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes, Syria’s government intervened to restore order — reportedly notifying Israel in advance about troop movements, clarifying that the move was not intended as a threat to its southern neighbor. According to reports, Syria’s government misread the situation, believing it had a green light from both the U.S. and Israel to deploy troops, encouraged by U.S. messaging that Syria should be governed as a centralized state, and influenced by nascent security talks with Israel. Israel, however, viewed the situation as an invitation for escalation.
Defense Minister Israel Katz framed devastating airstrikes on Syrian tanks and later in Damascus itself as a moral imperative: protecting a persecuted Druze minority, a group with a substantial and visible presence in Israel, including in the Israeli military. “The regime [Syrian government] sent troops south of Damascus...and began slaughtering the Druze,” Netanyahu declared a day after Israeli bombs tore into the General Command Headquarters of the Syrian Army.
Israel’s actions — encroaching into Syrian territory and conducting hundreds of airstrikes since the fall of Assad and now bombing Damascus during sensitive negotiations — directly undermine U.S. policy by preventing the consolidation of a sovereign and unified Syria capable of reclaiming its south and becoming a viable partner for the U.S. vision.
Crucially, the very Druze community Netanyahu claims to protect largely rejects this imposed patronage. Two out of the three spiritual leaders of the Druze community in Syria — Sheikhs Hamoud al-Hanawi and Youssef Jarbouh — emphasize their Syrian identity and demand protection from the Syrian state, not external powers. Sheikh Jarbouh, on the back of recent events in Suweida, insisted solutions must come from within Syria, also sending a message to Israel that “any attack on the Syrian state is an attack on us…we are part of Syria.”
Among Syria's Druze leadership, only Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri champions Israel’s intervention, labeling the government “terrorist criminal gangs” — a view rejected by many within his community. This isolation was articulated by Laith al-Balous, leader of the influential “Rijal al Karama” (Men of Dignity) militia. Formed during Syria's civil war to defend the Druze against both the deposed Assad regime and extremists, al-Balous forcefully countered al-Hijri on Al Jazeera: “there is one of the leaders who took the sect to another direction. We, as the people of the Suwayda Governorate, reject it and do not accept it,” adding that we must “stand with our Syrian people.”
Israel’s inability to act as sole guarantor of the Druze community’s security in Syria was laid bare on Friday when — just days after bombing Syria’s Defense Ministry and presidential palace — an Israeli official tacitly admitted Damascus alone could stabilize the crisis. "In light of ongoing instability," the unnamed official told Reuters, Israel would now "allow limited entry of Syrian internal security forces into Sweida district for the next 48 hours."
This reversal implicitly acknowledged that the Syrian government — whose troops and command structure Israel had targeted — remain the indispensable actor needed to restore order and act as a buffer between the warring Bedouin tribes and Druze militias. Indeed, these localized clashes were the underlying trigger which drew in Syrian government forces, whose intervention then became Israel’s pretext for bombing.
The U.S. administration, blindsided by Israel's bombings, scrambled to contain the fallout. Officials revealed they explicitly “told the Israelis to stand down and take a breath,” urging direct talks with Damascus instead of bombs. Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly framed the strikes as a dangerous impediment to building a “peaceful and stable Syria,” undermining months of U.S. political capital invested in al-Sharaa’s government. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce pointedly clarified that “the United States did not support recent Israeli strikes.”
Most recently, Special Envoy Barrack went a step further, siding explicitly with Syria and noting that the government “has conducted themselves as best they can…to bring a diverse society together,” adding that Israel’s air assault “came at a very bad time."
Israel’s strikes expose a cynical pattern that echoes its sabotage of nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran. Just as Netanyahu lobbied relentlessly against U.S.-Iran diplomacy — creating conditions for Israel’s unilateral strikes that later succeeded in luring Washington into conflict — he now undermines U.S.-Syrian rapprochement. The contradiction here is particularly glaring: Israel has spent the last few weeks publicly urging Syria to join the Abraham Accords; yet it also actively attacks the very government forces it claims to want as partners.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar — who previously dismissed al-Sharaa’s government as a “bunch of jihadists — openly championed Syria’s federalization in February 2025, insisting on dividing the country along sectarian lines to ensure respect for “different ways of life.” This vision, which included lobbying Washington to allowRussia to retain its bases on Syria’s Mediterranean coast to counter Turkey’s influence and keep Syria decentralized, stands in direct opposition to the unified, stable state that the Syrians, neighboring states, and the Trump administration are working to build.
Israel's escalation in Syria, which awkwardly coincides with U.S. efforts to lift sanctions and establish unified military control over Syrian territory, places the Trump administration in a tight corner. Through its recent maneuvers, Israel has signaled its intent to control Syria's destiny, regardless of the damage to U.S. strategy.
With each bomb dropped on Damascus, Israel isn’t just attacking Syrian infrastructure. It is dismantling the very pillars of a potential regional order of sovereign states based on stability and integration, revealing a fundamental divergence that is becoming increasingly costly for Washington, and for the wider region.
The ultimate test for the Trump administration is whether it can restrain Israel's aggressive approach and allow its own vision for a unified, stable Syria to take root.
There has been an extraordinary flurry of announcements from the Trump administration about its preferred domestic and international policies since January 20.
Policies have been threatened, announced, postponed, canceled, and reinstated with greater or lesser severity. But underneath this hyperactivity, a clear pattern of economic policy preferences is emerging.
The White House has the following goals — shrink America’s trade deficits; use economic pressure to force countries to align with U.S. goals; recalibrate America’s strategic interests and the balance of U.S. and allied defense spending; maintain the central global role of the dollar; and keep interest rates low by encouraging inflows of foreign capital into U.S. government debt.
It is less clear that all these goals can be achieved simultaneously, as American actions provoke reactions from other governments and financial markets. Policies that seek to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and pare back the defense umbrella could lead to economic and political reactions elsewhere that impact the preservation of the dollar’s centrality and push up America’s interest rates.
Stephen Miran, head of the Council of Economic Advisers, has acknowledged that “demand for dollars has kept our [U.S.] interest rates low.” And Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has argued that global trade imbalances are in good part driven by insufficient consumption in Europe and Asia.
But the accounting counterpart of large U.S. trade deficits is a large net flow of dollars overseas, thus creating a demand for a place to store those dollars, including U.S. Treasuries. Thus, basic arithmetic means that the goal of reducing U.S. trade deficits could reduce demand for U.S. Treasuries and put upward pressure on interest rates. Pushing for sharp increases in defense spending outside the U.S. could lead to, as I previously noted, “allies borrowing and spending more on their own defense, creating alternatives that can compete with Treasuries for global investors’ favor.”
Miran has suggested ways to square this circle, at least in part. For example, allies could “boost defense spending and procurement from the U.S., buying more U.S.-made goods, and taking strain off our servicemembers and creating jobs here.” Or “they could simply write checks to Treasury [sic] that help us finance global public goods.”
His idea is that greater burden-sharing could benefit the U.S., whether through more export business for defense contractors (thus reducing the trade deficit), or more revenues for the Treasury from the provision of “defense as a service.” All this could be described as an attempt to monetize primacy.
However, the very definition of allies may have become more uncertain as patterns of national interest become more fluid and situational, potentially pushing customers away from long-term dependence on American military technology. For example, concerns have emerged in Europe about a potential “kill switch” embedded in American hardware. These worries are overblown, but the denial of software upgrades was already a tool of statecraft under President Biden. Even so, the U.S. is so far ahead in many defense technologies that other countries have few indigenous options at the same level of sophistication. So Europe is splitting the difference in its defense ramp-up, both buying from the U.S. and increasing domestic production over the long term.
Current policies might also be eroding a broader quid pro quo that underlies America’s historically unique status as the world’s largest debtor AND provider of the dominant global currency. Britain was the world’s largest creditor in 1914, a status that was formally transferred (along with the mantle of dominant-currency provider) to the U.S. by 1945. But by the 1980s, a different bargain emerged — the dollar’s centrality endured even as the U.S. became an external debtor but provided both a defense umbrella and a market for the world’s goods.
One question is whether that unique status is dented by a reduced American willingness to perform both those roles. For example, Japan’s finance minister has mused that his country’s Treasury holdings could play a part in tariff negotiations with the U.S.
The underlying quest for low interest rates and persistent dollar centrality has also led in another direction — encouraging the expansion of dollar stablecoins. These are globally transferrable privately issued digital tokens that guarantee that they will hold a par value to the dollar. The twin rationale is that this will solidify global “dollar dominance” by enabling private holdings of a digital version of the currency around the world, while also forcing the issuers of such stablecoins to hold U.S. Treasury debt, increasing demand for the same.
Such vehicles could create financial stability issues elsewhere by enabling capital flight, but this might not disturb the administration (even if foreign financial meltdowns have in the past impacted American exporters and investors). However, there is no guarantee that foreign money flowing into digital dollars would react differently than similar flows into conventional dollars should markets fear heightened political pressures on the Fed. Even the U.S. could be hit by financial instability enabled by widening the mechanisms of instantaneous cross-border digital currency transfers.
Beyond some of the inherent contradictions across these multiple goals, America’s efforts in this direction are also pushing other countries and regions to reduce their vulnerability to U.S. economic and monetary pressures. ECB President Christine Lagarde has called for measures to deepen European integration in order to bolster the euro as a competitor to the dollar. The EU has long talked about this with less follow-through. Nevertheless, a key market indicator of European structural integrity — the spread between Italian and German debt — is at multiyear lows, suggesting investors believe this time may be different.
China’s central bank is also pushing to internationalize its currency, something that will be harder than in Europe, given that China imposes more stringent controls on capital flows. However, there are many signs that Chinese banks are lending more across borders (particularly in Asia) in renminbi rather than in dollars, expanding the international role of China’s currency into areas where the dollar has been predominant.
These developments will all take time, but it may turn out the U.S. is juggling too many balls of international economic diplomacy all at once.
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Top image credit: 6/22/2025 Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, center, attends a protest following U.S. attacks on nuclear sites, in a square in central Tehran on sunday, Jun 22, 2025. (Photo by Sobhan Farajvan/Pacific Press/Sipa USA VIA REUTERS)
When Iranian officials were preparing for the sixth round of negotiations with their U.S. counterparts over the country’s nuclear program, Israel launched a surprise military strike. Rather than condemning the attack, the United States and Europe stood by — or even applauded. The German Chancellor framed it as “the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us.” This moment only reinforced what Iranian leaders have long believed: that the world demands their surrender — and leaves them alone, at constant risk of betrayal and invasion.
Unless the West begins to understand Iranian history — and the mindset it has created among Iranian leaders — it will continue to misread Tehran’s actions. What often looks like aggression or stubbornness from the outside is, in the minds of Iranian decision-makers, an act of defense grounded in deep national memory.
For centuries, Iran has lived under the shadow of invasion, betrayal, and isolation. And every chapter of its modern history has only reinforced the same conclusion for its leaders: no matter who sits at Iran’s end of the negotiating table — be it a reformist, a moderate, or a hardliner — Iran must rely only on itself. It’s not a question of paranoia. It's a survival instinct.
This sense of siege didn’t begin in 2025 with the Israeli attacks, or even in 1980 with Saddam’s invasion. Iran has been shaped by trauma stretching back over a thousand years: Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia in the 4th century BC, the Arab conquest in the 7th century, the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, and repeated Turkic and Central Asian assaults. In more recent centuries, it lost territory in the Russo-Persian wars and was occupied by Allied forces in both world wars, even though it had declared neutrality in both. Again and again, Iran has faced foreign troops on its soil. And each time, no one came to help.
That deep historical scar tissue explains the decisions of Iranian leaders more than any speech ever could. It’s why they see military self-reliance not as aggression, but as insurance. It’s why they view diplomacy with suspicion, and why even moderates in Tehran are hesitant to trust Western intentions.
In the contemporary era, there have been at least four major betrayals by the United States that continue to underscore Iran’s fear of foreign duplicity.
First, the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, backed by the CIA and MI6. Mossadegh was democratically elected and sought to engage with the United States as a counterbalance to British colonial influence. The U.S. responded by orchestrating his overthrow, primarily to protect British oil interests.
Second, after the 9/11 attacks, Iran secretly assisted the United States in its campaign against the Taliban — providing intelligence, cooperating with anti-Taliban forces, and supporting the post-war settlement in Afghanistan. Just weeks later, it was branded part of President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil.”
The third betrayal involves the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Iran agreed to the strictest nuclear inspections regime in history. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed its compliance 15 times between 2016 and 2018. Yet in 2018, President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal and reimposed crippling sanctions, more severe than those that existed before the agreement.
Fourth, the most recent and perhaps most consequential betrayal came in June 2025. After five rounds of talks between Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff — mediated by Oman — a sixth round was scheduled. Both sides held firm positions but remained at the table. Iran sought recognition of its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. The U.S. ultimately demanded zero enrichment on Iranian soil. Despite the impasse, cautious progress was being made, based on comments from both sides after each round of talks.
Then, on the morning of June 13, 2025 — just two days before the next round — Israeli forces launched an unprecedented assault on Iran, striking nuclear sites and killing civilians. Senior scientists and military commanders were among the casualties. These weren’t symbolic warning shots. They were hard, coordinated blows, timed to derail diplomacy.
But Israel didn’t act alone.
While the initial Israeli attack was unilateral, American strikes soon followed. U.S. stealth bombers dropped 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on Fordow and Natanz. Days earlier, President Trump called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.” After the strikes, he publicly praised the operation, declared it a success, and warned that Iran “should make peace or face more attacks,” adding that “there are many targets left” if Iran refused to relinquish key parts of its nuclear program.
In Tehran, it’s not irrational to believe that U.S. diplomatic engagement was never intended to succeed. The negotiations had been real, but the intentions behind them now look suspect. For Iranian leaders, the lesson seemed unmistakable: the West may speak the language of dialogue, but it acts in the language of force and violence.
So, what should the West expect now?
It doesn’t matter who rules Iran. The leadership — regardless of name or face, whether wearing a crown, a turban, or a tie — shares a foundational belief: the West cannot be trusted to keep its word, honor its deals, or respect Iranian sovereignty.
This mindset long predates the Islamic Republic. Both Reza Shah and his son Mohammad Reza Shah — who came to power with at least the tacit support of Western powers — remained deeply skeptical of foreign governments and consistently questioned their intentions. That posture didn’t end with the 1979 revolution; it was only reinforced and has gained broader consensus across the political spectrum.
This doesn’t mean Iran is inflexible or incapable of negotiation. But its starting point is not trust, it’s caution. That caution has only deepened over time, especially as the West repeatedly turns to what it calls “alternatives” to diplomacy. Each time that happens, those inside Iran who oppose negotiations gain the upper hand.
This mindset may frustrate Western diplomats. But ignoring it leads to policies doomed to fail. If the West wants a different outcome with Iran, it must stop pretending it’s engaging with a blank slate. History walks into every room before a single word is spoken. And for Iran, history keeps saying the same thing: you are alone, so act accordingly.
Until that narrative is disrupted — not with airstrikes, but with sustained, credible commitments — Iran’s leaders will continue to do exactly what history taught them to do: resist.
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