For Iran, the so-called “Axis of Evil” has boiled down to a party of one, as President Donald Trump prepares for direct talks with North Korea.
With Saddam Hussein overthrown and Kim Jong Un now preparing for a planned meeting in Singapore with Trump, Iran remains the last renegade among former President George W. Bush’s grouping of nations opposed to the U.S.
For those in Tehran, whether hard-liners, reformists or people simply trying to get by in Iran’s worsening economy, it’s head-spinning, especially after seeing Trump pull America out of the nuclear deal with world powers.
“I am buying my insulin shots at double the price only because of Trump’s decision,” fumed Najmeh Songhori, a 35-year-old diabetic mother of two standing in front of a pharmacy in central Tehran. “Meanwhile he is trying to reach a deal with North Korea. Who is going to trust him?”
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Excited crowds flooded the streets after the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran struck with world powers, including the U.S. under President Barack Obama.
The deal saw Iran agree to limit uranium enrichment in its nuclear program, which the West feared could be used to build a nuclear weapon. For Iran, which long has maintained its atomic program was for peaceful purposes, the deal took the shackles of sanctions off its economy and opened up its oil sales abroad.
No one believed it would bring massive change to Iran, which remains a Shiite theocracy overseen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But many hoped it would encourage further negotiations and normalize Iran’s…
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