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Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Unclear on the "Leadership" Issue

America has work ahead to rally countries to isolate an aggressive, nuclear weapons-seeking mullah-run Iran:

Now that the US is out of the deal, the fissures have begun to form. Pompeo seemed to recognize that, calling for formation of a broad coalition of countries that would supersede the small group of six world powers that reached the 2015 deal with Iran.

But the Trump administration may soon discover how effective it can be in addressing a key national-security concern like Iran without its most powerful allies at its side.

The notion being peddled is that America has abandoned its role in the West by walking away from the Iran deal. So America won't be able to rally allies to confront an odious Iran.

This fits with the idea that failing to do what everyone else is doing (like the Iran deal, or more broadly the Paris global warming agreement) means America isn't providing "leadership."

This displays a terrible confusion about leadership. Doing what everyone else is doing and being unwilling to do something different is not leadership--it is following.

When America is nearly all alone in pushing an action? That's the beginning of leadership.

We shall see if America can lead our Western allies to once again confront the odious Iranian religious regime. After all, we did it once before just before we abandoned those tough sanctions to get the incredibly awful Iran nuclear deal.

Does anybody actually think Iran got better since then?