Brookings Institute:
In May, President Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. One of the key reasons he cited was that the JCPOA did not address Iran’s continuing development and deployment of ballistic missiles.
Many experts, including myself (and several of my Brookings colleagues), disagreed with the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA. However, most agree that Iran’s ballistic missiles represent a serious threat to the security of U.S. deployed forces and partners in the region and need to be addressed. Unfortunately, since taking office in January 2017, the Trump administration has done very little to advance one of the best options available for addressing the Iranian ballistic missile threat: enhancing multilateral missile defense cooperation with the Gulf states.
