The Case for Trump’s Global Strategy — SkimNews
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- Mike Waltz, named U.N. ambassador after serving just 101 days as National Security Advisor following the Signal chat scandal that included a journalist, has become Trump's most visible foreign policy spokesperson on Sunday shows and at the U.N.
- Iran made a diplomatic offer during indirect talks in New York with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, but Trump rejected it as 'not good enough' because Iran is 'illegally trying to hold an international waterway hostage' while pursuing a nuclear program in violation of multiple U.N. resolutions.
- Waltz cited a U.N. record of 146 nations joining the U.S. in condemning Iran's UNCLOS violations and attacks on civilian shipping in the Persian Gulf as justification for maintaining sanctions and refusing to unfreeze Iranian assets.
- Waltz warned that if Iran tests a nuclear weapon, Saudi Arabia has already said it will too, triggering a nuclear arms race across the Middle East and 'an absolute breakdown of the nonproliferation' regime in place since the Cold War.
- Waltz acknowledged the conflict's costs — damaged U.S. bases in the region, consumption of more than a third of America's Patriot missile interceptors, and Americans paying roughly 40% more for gas than before the war — but said Trump 'isn't going to be like his predecessors who have kicked this can down the road.'
- Waltz claimed Iran's leverage is collapsing, citing near-prewar oil flow from Gulf allies to Asia, Iran's currency hitting a record low, foreign reserves nearly gone, and record inflation, with the IRGC controlling 40-50% of Iran's economy.
Why it matters: Waltz's defense reframes the Iran conflict from a costly military entanglement into a generational nonproliferation necessity, explicitly tying it to a potential Saudi nuclear response — a threat that, if credible, gives the administration its strongest argument for sustaining the war despite 40% higher gas prices and depleted Patriot stockpiles at home. The 146-nation condemnation coalition gives Trump diplomatic cover he can deploy if talks collapse entirely, while Iran's eroding economic position is presented as evidence the pressure is working.
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