Frank's Musings

The agreement in principle reported between Iran and the U.S. constitutes an advance of both the Islamic regime and the Trump administration towards conventional international political behavior. In other words, both sides will have acknowledged that the law of nations only exists among countries that tacitly accept certain norms, such as keeping open straits like Hormuz and not resorting to punishing military attack when trying to modify each other’s policies.

International relations is not a zero-sum game. It is encouraging that someone seems to have convinced the negotiators of that.