Mere minutes after President Trump announced to the world on May 8 that the United States would no longer be participating in the Iran nuclear deal, Europeans, Iranians, Russians, and even many Americans were wondering what the administration’s Plan B would be. Trump’s decision was so spur-of-the-moment and so sudden that he didn’t appear to have much of a back-up plan other than reimposing nuclear-related sanctions on Tehran and hoping for the day when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, bankrupt and depressed, ordered his underlings to go back to the table.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s May 21 speech on Iran was supposed to put some meat on the bones of the policy. What we received instead was about 35 minutes of bluster wrapped in hopeless delusions.