President Obama’s testy defense of his negotiations with Iran in the aftermath of Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress belies a critical question: “Why trust the president about Iran?”  In light of the president’s shattered Middle East policies, it’s right to wonder about his judgment.  A nuclear-armed Iran is more than a threat to Israelis (and nervous Sunnis, whom minority Shiite Iranians vie with); it is a threat to the West and the U.S., in particular. Wrote Walter Russell Mead for the Wall Street Journal in 2013: With the advantages of hindsight, it appears that the White House made five big miscalculations about the Middle East. It misread the political maturity and capability of the Islamist groups it supported; it misread the political situation in Egypt; it misread the impact of its strategy on relations with America's two most important regional allies (Israel and Saudi Arabia); it failed to grasp the new dynamics...(Read Full Post)