President Donald Trump reacts to a question from a reporter after announcing his intention to withdraw from the JCPOA Iran nuclear agreement during a statement at the White House in Washington, DC, on May 8, 2018. (Reuters / Jonathan Ernst)
Trump’s plan on pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal is to pressure Iran to restart negotiations on terms more favorable to the US—but that’s never going to happen, says Michael Klare. And Trump has no Plan B—except for war—which could quickly involve Israel fighting in Lebanon against Iran’s ally Hezbollah, which has thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli cities.
Also: the coming showdown in Texas between populist Democrats and establishment Democrats: D. D. Guttenplan has returned from the Lone Star State with a report on the political transformation underway there.
Plus: It’s the 50th anniversary of the student uprising at Columbia University, against university complicity in the Vietnam war—setting the path for students at hundreds of other schools during the next few years. Historian Eric Foner explains how it happened, and finds lessons for today’s movements for social justice.
Start Making SenseTwitterStart Making Sense is The Nation’s podcast, hosted by Jon Wiener and coproduced by the Los Angeles Review of Books. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes each Thursday.
Jon WienerTwitterJon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.