Will Trump Show Restraint in the Middle East?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has bombed Iran in what may lead to yet another war in the Middle East, and the challenge for President Donald Trump will be to protect American troops in the region and to stay out of this mess.

- By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

Netanyahu justified his latest military campaign by saying that Iran was a "clear and present danger." And it's true that Iran was enriching uranium to worrisome levels. It's believed to be just weeks from having enough fissile material to make several bombs (although creating bombs and a way to deliver them would take much longer).

But a key reason for Iran's increasingly dangerous course was the past colossal misjudgments by Netanyahu and Trump in their dealings with Iran. With strong backing from Netanyahu, Trump in 2018 pulled out of the nuclear agreement that President Barack Obama had reached that largely contained Iran's nuclear program.