KNOWING YOUR ALLIES:

I'm just back from eight days in Iran. Before my trip the United States withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear accords, and while I was in the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad, officially moved the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

Inside Iran I spoke with fearful students, anxious Foreign Ministry officials, and clerics seemingly pleased that they'd been proven right--the Americans could not be trusted. It doesn't take long to conclude that we've empowered the wrong people, shouting at the very folks who might have helped lower the nuclear temperature.

Among students there is deep frustration at their nation's lack of participation in the world, and a desire to engage. The universities I visited had foreign students from China, but no one from the United States. One man who had never left Iran spoke English with a scarred Southern accent, admitting he got his start with a DVD of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof his father brought home from a now-ancient business trip. He loved America from afar and the Trump visa ban was a personal affront to him. The students I met were not about to take to the streets in favor of John Bolton's regime change schemes. Nowhere did I feel any sense of the panic, crisis, and disruption that American pundits speak of. These kids wanted to see L.A.

People from the Foreign Ministry expressed frustration over having no Americans to talk to, and were unsure why the U.S. still questions the legitimacy and stability of Iran's government. "The Americans everywhere seem to have quit trying," one said. There was much talk about Russia and China, little confidence the Europeans would fight the American sanctions, and a sad resignation that moderates would not be able to overrule the hardliners on foreign policy for a long time to come. "The door you came through to Iran is open," one said, "but it's Russians and Chinese who seem to want to come in."

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