Slow Boring

Share this post
The case for not caring about Iran's "regional influence"
www.slowboring.com

The case for not caring about Iran's "regional influence"

The Middle East doesn't matter

Matthew Yglesias
Dec 16, 2020
228
187
Share this post
The case for not caring about Iran's "regional influence"
www.slowboring.com

At Vox, I was mostly out of the foreign policy hot takes game and I’m not sure how far I want to lean back into it since mostly I find establishment thinking about national security to be so out to lunch that it’s hard to even engage with.

But since Biden will swiftly face a concrete choice about Iran policy, I wanted to throw my two cents in here.

If you read sensible centrist foreign policy hands’ takes on Joe Biden and Iran, you tend to get something like what veteran national security hand Michael McFaul says in this thread: we should abandon Trump’s failed “maximum pressure” strategy, re-enter the Iran Nuclear Deal, and then, in the context of the deal, devise new ways to contain Iranian influence in the region.

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Slow Boring to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2023 Matthew Yglesias
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing