(CNN)If there is one foreign policy objective to which Donald Trump is unalterably committed, it is bringing the Iranian theocracy to its knees — or at least thwarting its nuclear ambitions.
This is the reason the President, against the advice of all of America’s leading allies, has clamped new and potentially existential sanctions on Iran for violating a treaty that the world believes it has respected to the letter if not the spirit.
But if he is to achieve this demolition of the Iranian system, it is becoming quite clear that Trump will have to accept Mohammed bin Salman, widely accused as the mastermind behind the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, as the effective ruler of Saudi Arabia with all that entails for a generation to come. And that entails quite a lot. MBS denies he ordered the killing.
