Next, an Iran nuclear deal with Chinese characteristics

Pope Leo XIV and Giorgia Meloni should take comfort from the fact that the main thrust of Donald Trump’s attack on them contains a clue as to how peace can be restored between Iran and the United States. By alleging that their opposition to his war means that the Pope and Meloni must be happy for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon (and even to attack Italy with one) Trump has shown that he is now reframing the war’s purpose as being chiefly about nukes rather than regime change or anything else.

Moreover, this retrospective reframing, made at the risk of alienating many of America’s estimated 53 million Catholic voters, indicates that he hopes that Iran can now be forced to agree to constraints on its nuclear program, allowing him to declare a sort of victory.

This outcome is possible, but to achieve it he will probably have to get help from China. And his negotiators will have to borrow from the work of some of the people he hates most: Barack Obama and the governments of Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

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