Robert Satloff is the Segal Executive Director of The Washington Institute, a post he assumed in January 1993.
Articles & Testimony
Now is the time to exert Washington's greatly expanded leverage, forcing Tehran to choose between a painful future with enrichment and other subversive tools in its arsenal or a hopeful future without them.
The only constant in President Trump’s Middle East policy is surprise. The key question for friend and foe alike is how Trump might apply that principle to fateful talks with Iran over its nuclear program. It is not a stretch of the imagination to think he might announce “the greatest diplomatic win in history” in the form of an agreement that supposedly removes any possible danger of that country developing a nuclear bomb, even as Iran can enjoy the benefits of civilian nuclear energy. Such a deal would seemingly set the clock back on the nuclear weapons program, remove the imminent fear of a breakout, and set a bold, broad agenda for future negotiations. And indeed, it would be a great deal—but only for Iran...
