Can Trump Prevent A Massive Middle East War?

Israel's dramatic ongoing strikes against Iran present a perilous test for a U.S. foreign policy team that is understaffed and riven by factional disputes.

With an ongoing attack on high-profile targets in Iran that began on Thursday, Israel has presented President Donald Trump with his most significant foreign policy crisis yet. Trump now has to decide how — and whether — to prevent an all-out war across the Middle East that could spiral, endangering millions of people, drawing in U.S. forces and worsening the global economic slowdown fueled by Trump’s trade policies.

Israeli jets have already struck more than 100 sites, including in the Iranian capital of Tehran, killing at least three military commanders and two nuclear scientists, as well as civilians including children, according to Iranian state media. Israeli officials have told their U.S. counterparts they plan to continue strikes for “several days or up to two weeks,” a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told HuffPost.

Israeli officials call their offensive “preemptive,” noting that Iran, a longtime foe of Tel Aviv, is closer than ever to being able to develop a nuclear weapon. There was no sign of an imminent Iranian attack on Israel, however, and Iran denied it intends to build a bomb.

For months, Washington and Tehran have been discussing a possible agreement to limit Iranian nuclear development in exchange for easing sanctions on the country.

On Friday morning, Trump appeared to call for diplomacy on his social media platform Truth Social: “There is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left.”