Dr. Ron Schleifer warned in his NEWSRAEL briefing that the West is again at risk of misunderstanding how Iran and its allies use agreements.
According to Schleifer, Tehran’s method is not necessarily to sign a deal and immediately break it in a dramatic way, but to erode it slowly, “millimeter by millimeter,” until the other side has grown used to each new violation.
He argued that this is the key danger in the emerging US-Iran understandings. The Iranians, he said, understand that President Trump wants to avoid another war and therefore believe they can extract concessions while continuing to protect their strategic goals. Schleifer compared this to a pattern of Middle Eastern deal-making in which one side signs, then tests the limits, then pushes further once the other side hesitates to respond.
The warning, he said, applies not only to Iran’s nuclear program, but also to Lebanon and Gaza.
