Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Columnist

Trump’s Iran Speech Had Three Audiences

Most listeners should be pleased by the president’s apparent desire to de-escalate.

January 8, 2020 at 10:00 PM UTC

Meghan L. O’Sullivan is a professor of international affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School and the North American chair of the Trilateral Commission, she served on the National Security Council from 2004 to 2007.

Speaking to many audiences.
Photograph: Bloomberg

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President Donald Trump’s speech on Iran will not go down in memory as eloquent or inspiring — but it gave the world what it needed most today: an opportunity for de-escalation. The U.S. president was unquestionably speaking to many audiences, and most should be more pleased than upset by what they heard.

For Americans, and the president’s supporters in particular, they heard a leader who remains resolute on Iran and unyielding in his objectives to have Iran end its nuclear weapons ambitions and its use of terrorism to destabilize the region and threaten American interests.