Commentary

Were Israel's strikes on Iran preemptive or preventative? Paul Poast weighs in on why the semantics are significant.

Bruce Jentleson and other experts discuss the ongoing debate over whether the United States should get directly involved in the Israel-Iran conflict.

"He wants a deal where he's the hero and I think the Iranians would really benefit by moving in that direction," Cécile Shea says of Trump's next steps.

"I really think [President Trump] wants the ceasefire, and a lot of his bellicosity is to try to pressure Iran to come to the table," Cécile Shea says.

"There's been tension building, but yesterday, what happened last night, was definitely an escalation," Paul Poast says of the ongoing conflict between the two nations.

"The current situation is at a much higher level of intensity to where it doesn't seem like that's going to be easy to achieve, if it could even be achieved at all," Paul Poast says of diplomacy between the United States and Iran.

"I suspect that Israel, like a lot of other countries, just decided that [Iran's nuclear] program was moving ahead too quickly," Cécile Shea says.

With Operation Spiderweb, Ukraine demonstrated it has a lot of fight left. All that means is that the war is set to rage on, Paul Poast writes.

Pointing to recent extreme weather events, Joshua Busby makes the case for integrating climate action into national security planning.

"The way that this war stops is very simple," Ivo Daalder argues. "It is when the pressure on Russia is significant enough that they decide that the benefits of continuing the war are outweighed by the benefits of stopping."