Less than a week ago, on June 12, Israel launched a barrage of attacks against Iran, targeting nuclear sites, missile depots, and military and political leaders. Since then, the two countries have exchanged a series of attacks.

Philip Gordon is the Sydney Stein, Jr. Scholar at the Brookings Institution and a longtime observer and analyst of the Middle East, and his writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs for over 20 years. He has also been one of the key practitioners of U.S. Middle East policy, as White House Middle East coordinator during the Obama administration and, more recently, as national security adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Shortly after the start of the Trump administration, Gordon wrote in Foreign Affairs, to the surprise of many, about the opportunity Donald Trump had to make progress in the Middle East. On June 17, he joined Dan Kurtz-Phelan to discuss the dangers of this latest round of escalation—and also how wise U.S. policy could prevent it from ending in catastrophe.

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