Those opposed to yesterday’s Iran war have a stake in preventing tomorrow’s, to break the entanglement of the United States in conflicts it regrets more quickly and more intensely the more they keep happening. This mission is hardly impossible. Military defeat — which is what the United States just suffered — has repeatedly compelled Americans to re-evaluate the severity of a threat they could not eliminate.

 

Trump’s Iran Debacle Could Be a Gift for America

By Robert Malley and Stephen Wertheim

Mr. Malley was the special envoy for Iran from 2021 to 2023. Mr. Wertheim is a historian of U.S. foreign policy.

The lesson to other world leaders is simple: Listen to Ramaphosa, Meloni and Carney, and don’t let Trump bully you. The lesson to America is so obvious it shouldn’t need spelling out: If you continue to be rude and nasty to the world, the world will eventually return the favor. If you want to isolate yourself, carry on. Otherwise, try a different approach. It’s called diplomacy.

 

No Diplomacy Please, We’re American

By Andreas Kluth

Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist.

Ross Wiener doesn't explain the fact that Mississippi is leading in childhood education because it went back to the basics

 

I Thought ‘No Child Left Behind’ Would Fix Public Schools. I Was Wrong.

By Ross Wiener

Mr. Wiener is an independent education policy consultant. From 2002 to 2009, he was the policy director for the Education Trust, an advocacy group focused on low-income students and students of color.

For 2026, the payroll tax cap, or taxable maximum, is $184,500. Workers and their employers each pay 6.2 percent on wages up to that amount. (Self-employed individuals pay 12.4 percent.) Today, the maximum Social Security withholding for one worker is $22,878, or 12.4 percent of $184,500. Not a penny more, even if an individual’s salary far exceeds $184,500. Since the vast majority of Americans make less than that, most people are paying Social Security taxes on 100 percent of their earnings while the highest earners are paying on only part of theirs. Why should a middle-class nurse pay a larger share of her paycheck than a wealthy corporate lawyer? This is doubly unfair in an economy in which top earners’ wages, over time, have pulled far ahead of those of the average worker.

 

Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren: Our Plan to Save Social Security

By Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren

Mr. Moreno, a Republican, is the senior U.S. senator from Ohio. Ms. Warren, a Democrat, is the senior U.S. senator from Massachusetts.

President Trump may think our power over other nations comes just from our might. What the war in Iran should teach him, and all of us, is that our power also comes from other nations believing our might is right.

 

You Can’t Be a Superpower Without Allies

By Oona A. Hathaway

Professor Hathaway teaches law and political science at Yale and is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the president of the American Society of International Law.

So by all means, denounce this failed Iran war agreement. But the tragedy here is not Trump’s exit from the war but the war itself, and the lesson of history is that when you see a cast of overconfident hawks promising painless victory, beware.

 

Trump Was Right. The War Ended With a Surrender.

By Nicholas Kristof

Opinion Columnist

The possible silver lining for both America and Israel is that the failed Trump-Netanyahu endeavor to destroy Iran’s Islamofascist autocracy might end up saving American and Israeli democracy. Both countries are facing fateful elections — America’s midterms in November and Israel’s national election in the fall. Trump and Bibi, both sinking in the polls, were hoping that a quick win in Iran would propel each of them or their parties to victory.

 

Trump Put His Own Interests Above All in the Iran Deal

By Thomas L. Friedman

Opinion Columnist