Follow us on social

Benjamin Netanyahu Mike Waltz

Trump fired Waltz because he wanted to attack Iran

The former national security adviser was reportedly coordinating with Israel to do it

Reporting | QiOSK

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.


Steve Witkoff and Mike Waltz shake hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (White House Flickr)
Reporting | QiOSK
Iran
Top image credit: An Iranian man (not pictured) carries a portrait of the former commander of the IRGC Aerospace Forces, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, and participates in a funeral for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, Iranian nuclear scientists, and civilians who are killed in Israeli attacks, in Tehran, Iran, on June 28, 2025, during the Iran-Israel ceasefire. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto VIA REUTERS)

First it was regime change, now they want to break Iran apart

Middle East

Washington’s foreign policy establishment has a dangerous tendency to dismantle nations it deems adversarial. Now, neoconservative think tanks like the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and their fellow travelers in the European Parliament are openly promoting the balkanization of Iran — a reckless strategy that would further destabilize the Middle East, trigger catastrophic humanitarian crises, and provoke fierce resistance from both Iranians and U.S. partners.

As Israel and Iran exchanged blows in mid-June, FDD’s Brenda Shaffer argued that Iran’s multi-ethnic makeup was a vulnerability to be exploited. Shaffer has been a vocal advocate for Azerbaijan in mainstream U.S. media, even as she has consistently failed to disclose her ties to Azerbaijan’s state oil company, SOCAR. For years, she has pushed for Iran’s fragmentation along ethnic lines, akin to the former Yugoslavia’s collapse. She has focused much of that effort on promoting the secession of Iranian Azerbaijan, where Azeris form Iran’s largest non-Persian group.

keep readingShow less
Ratcliffe Gabbard
Top image credit: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe join a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump and his intelligence team in the Situation Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. June 21, 2025. The White House/Handout via REUTERS

Trump's use and misuse of Iran intel

Middle East

President Donald Trump has twice, within the space of a week, been at odds with U.S. intelligence agencies on issues involving Iran’s nuclear program. In each instance, Trump was pushing his preferred narrative, but the substantive differences in the two cases were in opposite directions.

Before the United States joined Israel’s attack on Iran, Trump dismissed earlier testimony by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, in which she presented the intelligence community’s judgment that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” Questioned about this testimony, Trump said, “she’s wrong.”

keep readingShow less
Mohammad Bin Salman Trump Ayatollah Khomenei
Top photo credit: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (President of the Russian Federation/Wikimedia Commons); U.S. President Donald Trump (Gage Skidmore/Flickr) and Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei (Wikimedia Commons)

Let's make a deal: Enrichment path that both Iran, US can agree on

Middle East

The recent conflict, a direct confrontation that pitted Iran against Israel and drew in U.S. B-2 bombers, has likely rendered the previous diplomatic playbook for Tehran's nuclear program obsolete.

The zero-sum debates concerning uranium enrichment that once defined that framework now represent an increasingly unworkable approach.

Although a regional nuclear consortium had been previously advanced as a theoretical alternative, the collapse of talks as a result of military action against Iran now positions it as the most compelling path forward for all parties.

Before the war, Iran was already suggesting a joint uranium enrichment facility with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Iranian soil. For Iran, this framework could achieve its primary goal: the preservation of a domestic nuclear program and, crucially, its demand to maintain some enrichment on its own territory. The added benefit is that it embeds Iran within a regional security architecture that provides a buffer against unilateral attack.

For Gulf actors, it offers unprecedented transparency and a degree of control over their rival-turned-friend’s nuclear activities, a far better outcome than a possible covert Iranian breakout. For a Trump administration focused on deals, it offers a tangible, multilateral framework that can be sold as a blueprint for regional stability.

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.