Washington likely underestimated Iran’s ability to withstand the initial US-Israeli strikes, making a negotiated settlement harder to achieve and deepening mistrust, foreign-policy expert Paul Saunders told Iran International. The United States appeared to believe that military force would quickly weaken the Iranian government and compel Tehran to accept an agreement closer to US terms, Paul Saunders, president and CEO of the Center for the National Interest, said. “I think the administration probably … overestimated how easy it would be to use force to bring about a successful agreement,” Saunders told Kambiz Tavana in an interview in Washington DC.
Iran International