Blinken: I Hated the Airstrike but Hope It Works

Antony Blinken crystallizes the thinking of plenty of Trump critics in a New York Times essay about the bombing of Iran:

• The US attack "was unwise and unnecessary," writes the secretary of state under President Biden. "Now that it's done, I very much hope it succeeded."

Blinken makes the case that the strike wouldn't have been necessary in the first place had President Trump not torn up a 2015 monitoring agreement struck by the Obama administration and other nations with Tehran. He also argues Tehran was up to two years away from actually creating a weapon, and thus there was still time for diplomacy. And despite White House claims to the contrary, there's no way of telling just how badly Iran's nuclear program has been hurt, he writes. "Now that the military die has been cast, I can only hope that we inflicted maximum damage—damage that gives the president the leverage he needs to finally deliver the deal he has so far failed to achieve." (Read the full essay.)