Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:
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The Washington Post wonders what is in the new Iran deal
Vice President JD Vance said an agreement to end the Iran war was signed “digitally” on Sunday, and a formal ceremony is scheduled for Friday in Geneva. Asked Monday when he’ll share the text of the deal, President Donald Trump suggested “sometime after Friday.”
If it’s a diplomatic triumph, why conceal it?
The most plausible answer is that the document is vague and little more than an agreement to keep negotiating over thorny issues. Indeed, Vance says the deal only starts the clock on 60 days of “technical negotiations.” It certainly would help the president politically if he could call time on the war and watch oil prices and inflation fall ahead of the midterms.
The reality is that there are more questions than answers. Did the U.S. agree to free up funds to Iran in exchange for opening the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran effectively closed after the war began in February? That would mean that the United States is making concessions to restore the status quo ante.
Iranian state media claimed that the U.S. agreed to unfreeze at least $12 billion in assets and suspend sanctions on its oil. The White House insists that “zero” assets are being unfrozen and that any money which gets turned over “requires the Iranians to do some of the things that they’re promising to do.”
Trump himself asserted that the Strait of Hormuz will be imminently reopened, toll-free, in perpetuity, in exchange for the U.S. ending its blockade. Reopening the waterway would give the global economy some relief without fully empowering the weakened Iranian regime.
But it’s not clear whether Iran has agreed to that. Vance clarified on CNBC that “our expectation is that the strait is going be opened in a toll-free way for the long-term.” But he added that more “technical negotiations” are necessary. Whether ships can pass unmolested will become clear soon enough.
Understandably, Trump doesn’t want to be seen giving the regime a cash lifeline without substantial and verified concessions. Money is fungible, and the resources Tehran received during past negotiations enabled the support of terrorists around the region.
Eventually the Iranian nuclear program needs to be dealt with, and no one expects that to happen right away. But will the country get sanctions relief before it takes meaningful steps to denuclearize? What verification mechanisms will exist?
Iran has insisted for decades that it was not developing a nuclear weapon, even as it pursued the bomb. Why would anyone now trust a promise not to pursue a bomb? Will Tehran be allowed to enrich uranium at low levels?
Israelis do not like what they’re hearing about the deal. The U.S. says Israel will be able to defend itself when attacked, but has the Trump administration agreed to pressure its ally not to hit Hezbollah targets in Lebanon?
The simple solution is to release the text of the agreement immediately. If it’s a good deal for America, Trump is losing control of the narrative for no good reason. If it’s not, the public deserves to know.
ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/06/15/trump-withholding-iran-deal-text-is-red-flag/
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June 16
The Wall Street Journal on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
Why is this so hard? We mean reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law to surveil foreign adversaries to prevent terror attacks on Americans.
The law expired last week in a fit of partisan spite, as Democrats wanted to score some points over President Trump’s choice of housing regulator Bill Pulte as acting director of national intelligence (DNI). The Pulte appointment was a mistake, but the winners were the terrorists and our adversaries.
Not to leave bad enough alone, Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday that he’s now against reauthorizing Section 702 unless it also includes the Save America Act on voting rules. “A few Dumocrats are against FISA, with or without Bill Pulte going to DNI, as Acting,” Mr. Trump wrote. “What kind of a deal is that. Besides, I’m against FISA if it doesn’t come with The Save America Act . . . firmly attached to it.” The Save America Act has no chance of passing the Senate, as Mr. Trump has been told a hundred times by Senate Republicans. Mr. Trump’s purpose here is hard to figure, as it often is.
To his credit, Majority Leader John Thune says the Senate will nonetheless move forward to pass FISA as a stand-alone bill. Mr. Trump has also now nominated the estimable Jay Clayton to be the permanent DNI, and Republicans have accelerated his confirmation hearing to Wednesday. If Democrats are sincere about their objections to Mr. Pulte as acting DNI, they’ll vote to confirm Mr. Clayton the minute he gets through the Senate Intelligence Committee. Mr. Pulte can then return to his housing duties.
Democrats can also call Mr. Trump’s bluff by voting to pass the FISA reauthorization and get a bill to the President’s desk as soon as possible. If Mr. Trump vetoes the bill because it doesn’t include the measure on voting procedures, he’ll be responsible if there’s a terrorist attack on the homeland while the surveillance power isn’t available.
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June 11
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch says the bill is coming due on vaccine denialism
If history someday defines our current political era as one in which America inexplicably allowed preventable, once-defeated diseases to reemerge and ravage society — and that narrative is growing today with alarming clarity — the most baffling part of the story will be how we failed to see it coming.
Today’s deeply misguided anti-vaccination movement didn’t start with the 2020 pandemic, but political resistance to COVID vaccination policies supercharged it. Many (including this page ) have warned in the past few years that politically driven distrust of COVID vaccines would spread to vaccination generally, allowing the revival of measles and other defeated diseases.
And here we are. The scourge of measles — which isn’t always the harmless rite of childhood some imagine and can in fact be fatal — is back, after having been declared effectively eradicated in 2000. During the ensuing decade, cases nationwide were generally confined to fewer than 100 annually. From 2000 through 2024, there was one (one!) U.S. measles death.
But falling vaccination rates in recent years, driven almost entirely by politicized misinformation about vaccines, have predictably undermined that achievement. Last year, the total number of U.S. measles cases topped 2,000 for the first time in more than 30 years, ultimately killing three Americans, two of them children — all of them unvaccinated.
Halfway through 2026, the U.S. has already crossed that 2,000-case threshold, guaranteeing another record-breaking year for a disease that is almost completely preventable. There have been no reported deaths yet this year, but the medical math all but guarantees they are coming.
What are we doing?
The good news is that the vast majority of Americans still understand that vaccination against viral diseases remains the most miraculous medical achievement in human history, bar none. Polls consistently show support for vaccines ranges between 80% and 90% of all Americans — including more than 65% of those who identify with the MAGA movement, according to a poll last year by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the de Beaumont Foundation.
That helps explain why the Trump White House has reportedly ordered Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to pull back on his anti-vaccination rhetoric: not because it’s dangerously corrosive to America’s trust in mainstream medicine but because the administration fears public backlash over that irresponsible rhetoric could cost Republican seats in the November midterms.
That doesn’t mean that RFK is giving up on his medieval mission of undermining solid medical science. The longtime anti-vax zealot — who belongs in charge of the nation’s health apparatus like an arsonist belongs in charge of a fire department — is still “working behind the scenes” to get federal scientists under him to validate ties between vaccines and autism and other thoroughly debunked theories, The New York Times reports.
It may not be possible to draw a straight line between Kennedy’s dangerous crusade and, say, the fact that here in red-state Missouri, measles vaccination rates have fallen to about 90% (95% is considered the threshold for creating “herd immunity” to protect those who, for medical reasons, cannot be vaccinated). But it certainly can’t help.
As predictable as the measles resurgence has been amid diminished vaccination, it’s equally easy to see what’s next. Because it’s so contagious, measles is a “harbinger disease” that foretells coming outbreaks of other diseases. The Times reports that hospitals across the country are already seeing increases in whooping cough and other infections.
On these pages earlier this month, Dr. Gregory Storch, professor of pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, shared his early experiences treating the lesser-known bacterium Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) and the horrors it ushered in before development of a vaccine in the 1980s:
“The fatality rate was about 3% to 6% and up to 20% of the survivors had brain damage. I saw children recover but be left paralyzed, blind or deaf,” he wrote.
″… Today, thousands of children who potentially would have contracted invasive Hib are alive and well because they were protected from the infection by vaccination. Let’s not give up this great accomplishment. Let’s not turn our backs on life-saving vaccines.”
That’s the overwhelming position of serious medical professionals, regarding not just Hib but the whole range of vaccine-preventable infections.
Don’t take our word for it — and for heaven’s sake, don’t take the word of a federal health agency that has become a dire threat to American’s health. Ask your doctor. As always in the realm of medicine, they know better than your political movement.
ONLINE: https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/article_77182526-9bad-496f-8ee1-6ff2772bf5c8.html
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June 16
The Houston Chronicle says the proposed deal with Iran is bad, but Trump should take it
The White House lawn was home to a spectacle of muscle-rippling ferocity Sunday night. Testosterone oozed from every pore of the fighters kicking and slugging it out in the “Claw,” a temporary arena set up for President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday celebration. The crowd roared again and again for the Ultimate Fighting Championship matches.
The iconic image of the night came after Diego Lopes, his eye swollen and bloodied, delivered a nasty knockout. He managed to climb up and balance atop the cage just long enough for photographers to capture the moment — his arms outstretched, the White House before him, the crowd on its feet as a huge American flag unfurled in all its star-spangled glory.
Mere hours earlier, Trump had announced on his social media site an agreement with Iran that amounts to a strategic defeat for the United States of America. It’s a bad deal, and one the United States should take.
Wars aren’t won, it turns out, based on a military leader’s physical prowess. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has demonstrated in an impressive fashion that he can complete 100 push-ups and 50 pull-ups in under five minutes and 30 seconds. When it comes to geopolitical strategic thinking, however, he might as well be a 90-pound weakling.
Former White House staffer Sebastian Gorka famously once drove a black Ford Mustang convertible with a vanity plate that read “ ART WAR, ” a reference to the classic military treatise by Sun Tzu. Perhaps Hegseth should borrow his copy: Our military leadership has fumbled on even the most basic aspects of this military conflict of choice.
Despite America’s advantage in the skies, and even with Iran’s conventional naval fleet at the bottom of the seas, Iran held the global economy hostage using its Shahed drones. About the size and cost of a Toyota Camry, these weapons are designed and operated by nerds. Not meatheads.
Despite decades of war games conducted by the Pentagon anticipating that Iran would attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, along with Iranian leaders’ open threats to do so, the Trump administration was caught unprepared.
Despite having funded much of Ukraine’s success at countering the Russian version of the Shahed, the United States turned down Ukraine’s expertise and technology ahead of attacking Iran.
In this war, Trump achieved none of his major objectives. Iran still has the capacity to launch ballistic weapons at Israel and its Arab neighbors. Iranian people can expect more repression. Iran’s regime and their terrorist proxies are not just intact, they are emboldened and more extreme. Israeli troops remain in Lebanon and their battle with Hezbollah could easily undo the fragile ceasefire between Iran and the United States.
The president boasts that Iran has agreed not to produce nuclear weapons — a promise they have made for decades while pursuing uranium enrichment. Trump tore up the treaty negotiated by the Obama administration in part because he distrusted such promises. He has repeatedly lambasted the $1.7 billion paid to Iran — money that was owed back to Iran because of military equipment the U.S. never delivered. The details of the deal Trump is making have not been released but Iran claims that it includes the release of $25 billion in frozen assets.
And now the United States has agreed to end its blockade while Iran reopens the strait. Which is to say: The situation is back to how it was before the war began. Before hundreds of children were killed. Before 13 U.S. service members died. Before missile stocks crucial to our national security were depleted. Before Trump’s jacked team burned through billions of taxpayer dollars every day.
So much for Hegseth’s pushups.
Iran never dominated the U.S. militarily. Their soldiers didn’t KO ours or climb the cage in exultation. Their drones didn’t even sink big commercial ships. What their scrappy, low-cost warfare managed to do was scare shipping companies — and spook their insurers. Some bespectacled actuary in London decided running the strait was too risky. The oil shock that ensued would have been even more catastrophic had it not been for the capacity of the Texas oil and gas industry to boost exports, and for China to curtail its demand.
Oil prices plummeted Sunday, yet even after Iran and the United States make the deal official, somewhere in their byzantine calculations insurers and energy traders will now include in their prices the risk that Iran will once again close the Strait of Hormuz. They’ll bump up the terror premium that the Trump administration claimed would be eliminated by the war. And ultimately, consumers may pay a higher price for fuel, and for everything else.
Last Sunday, for those who love a slugfest, the White House was the place to be. Watching an ultimate fighter kick the head of his opponent and then pummel him on the ground makes for a great distraction from Trump’s failed war.
But as with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own efforts to control the narrative of his invasion of Ukraine with his bare-chested pageantry, reality eventually takes hold.
Trump’s deal with Iran is bad, and the best move for Americans is to take it. The alternative is to lose more blood and treasure, and to what end? Better terms are unlikely without a full-scale invasion and casualties on par with the Iraq War.
Sun Tzu once wrote that victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.
Hopefully future presidents will keep that in mind.
ONLINE: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/iran-deal-hegseth-trump-22306672.php
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June 15
The Guardian says Trump’s Iran deal is a pause, not a victory
The US-Iran agreement to halt fighting for 60 days is welcome, because even cynical diplomacy is better than war. But Donald Trump should not be allowed to call this a triumph. He has bought a pause after an illegal war of choice that failed to secure its declared aims, devastated Iran, destabilised Lebanon and sent shocks through energy and fertiliser markets, leaving many people poorer and hungrier. A campaign launched to display US military strength is likely instead to be remembered for demonstrating its limits.
A deal with Iran is better than war with Iran. But the US president is hailing as victory the partial easing of a crisis that he, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, helped create. The measure of success will not be the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, which war had closed, but whether the next two months produce a verifiable nuclear settlement and put out the flames fanned by the US-Israel attacks.
If that fails, the war will not look like the prelude to peace. It will confirm to every Gulf monarchy, oil trader and military planner that Iran has a chokehold over the global economy. This episode may belong in future histories of US decline because it exposes the gap between American military capability and American strategic control. That is why Mr Trump wants to present Iran’s position as submission. Tehran sees something else: a case for compensation, sanctions relief and leverage over Hormuz. The final agreement, if it happens, will depend on which story wins out.
Leaked drafts revealed competing narratives of what has been agreed. US officials told Reuters that the unfreezing of assets and the lifting of trade restrictions would be conditional on Tehran’s compliance, while Iranian sources say the draft includes oil waivers, the release of frozen funds and a halt to hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon. The first test of Mr Trump’s Iran deal is not whether he can announce it, but whether he can enforce it on America’s friends as well as its enemies. Defiance from the Israeli cabinet, and reports of lethal drone attacks in Israeli-occupied parts of Lebanon, suggest its leadership is a reluctant participant in peace.
Mr Trump is negotiating over a nuclear programme once contained by the Obama-era deal that he ripped up, while trying to reopen a strait closed by a war he chose to start. The 2015 accord cut Iran’s uranium stockpile by 98%, capped enrichment at 3.67% (significantly below bomb-ready), imposed monitoring and offered sanctions relief – all without war.
Mr Trump now seeks a version of that after a conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and exposed US vulnerability. The irony is that Iran had offered better nuclear terms before 28 February. Mr Trump gambled that decapitating Tehran’s leadership would win him more. Instead, he has ended up with less.
The US president is trying to hide the difference with bluster. In a revealing interview with the New York Times on his 80th birthday, he claims that he has forced Iran into a nuclear climbdown and turned America into the paid guardian of the Gulf. Iran has a very different view, believing that it has proved the price of excluding it from the Middle East’s order, and that reopening the strait of Hormuz is a concession for which Washington must pay. Between those two interpretations lies the next crisis.
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