America’s strategy for countering Iran makes no sense

THE long-feared “Shia crescent”, stretching from Iran to Lebanon, is now materialising. As the Sunni jihadists of Islamic State (IS) are crushed by disparate military coalitions, their place is being filled by radicals of the Shia sort sponsored by Iran—Lebanon’s Hizbullah group, local militias and mercenaries recruited from as far as Afghanistan and Pakistan.The prospect of Iranian hegemony is raising alarm across the region (see ). Israel is holding large military exercises to prepare for a future war against Hizbullah. Saudi Arabia, fearing the rise of a Hizbullah-like group in Yemen, has waged a poorly run campaign against the Shia Houthis. Gulf states are spending billions on new weapons. Now President Donald Trump may be about to make everything worse by, in effect, reneging on Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.