Norman Stockwell sits in for Allen Ruff today to debrief with Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute. They talk about Trump’s decision to bomb Iran and the history of the US’s intervention in the Middle East that got us here today. 

Sheline says Israel and the US’s bombing of Iran caught Iran off guard because Trump seemed to be engaged in good-faith negotiations. The diplomatic process broke down even though Tulsi Gabbard testified that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. 

Iran was enriching uranium for civilian purposes, something it can legally do through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But Israel has developed nuclear weapons even though it has not signed the NPT. Sheline says that the US media has tried to emphasize that we should be afraid of Iran’s nuclear program and has used some of the same rhetoric from the Iraq War to do so.

That also breakdown Trump’s relationship to Netanyahu, how US aid and contractors are contributing to violence in Israel and Iran, and how the history of US in Iran has shaped Trump’s recent actions. Sheline says she is hopeful that a generational shift is happening as people watch what Israel and the US military and aid groups are doing in Gaza.

Annelle Sheline, PhD, is a research fellow in the Middle East program. She previously served as a Foreign Affairs Officer at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor’s Office of Near Eastern Affairs (DRL/NEA), before resigning in March 2024 in protest over the Biden administration’s unconditional support for Israeli military operations in Gaza.

Featured image of US and Israeli flags via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

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