OPINION: Iran and the Levers of Global Power

In the current American–Iran stand-off are a number of global players. That is hardly new, but what is novel is that, for the first time in decades, there’s almost no power that can obstruct or alter U.S. efforts to confront Iranian aggressions in America’s own time and fashion.

In other words, the United States is almost immune from the sort of pressures that usually coalesce to dictate, modify, or thwart U.S. decision-making in the Middle East. Such liberation from outside coercion is singularly unusual in the post-war American overseas experience....