Why it matters:
Recent phone calls between American and Israeli officials, coupled with rising domestic pressure on Trump and Netanyahu, suggest efforts to preemptively address future challenges.
What it's saying:
That conversation was only the latest in an increasingly tense relationship between Trump and Netanyahu.
The Israeli prime minister, his associates say, has been surprised at how insistent Trump has been on probing for a diplomatic solution.
The standoff between President Trump’s negotiating team and Iran boils down to this: whether the United States is willing to risk allowing Iran to continue producing nuclear fuel if the alternative is no deal and the possibility of another war in West Asia.
Go deeper:
Donald Trump and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, the negotiations with Iran are a new experience, and Iran’s insistence that it will never surrender its ability to enrich uranium on its soil threatens to scuttle an agreement that the president only a few weeks ago confidently predicted was within reach.
But it is almost exactly the same vexing dilemma that then-US President Barack Obama faced a decade ago. Reluctantly, Obama and his aides concluded that the only pathway to an accord was allowing Iran to continue producing small amounts of nuclear fuel, keeping its nuclear centrifuges spinning and its scientists working.
Hossein Amiri
