Foreign desk: Iran Nuke Deal Isn’t Working

Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal doesn’t mean the deal is working, warns Timothy Stafford at The National Interest. That’s because restrictions on Iranian nuclear development are only temporary, so the pact “can only be said to be working if progress is being made on the broader goal of discouraging Tehran from returning to enrichment when the restrictions on its program cease to be mandatory.” On that, “the picture is decidedly bleak.” Sanctions relief hasn’t trickled down enough to the middle class, the strengthening of which was to be a bulwark against extremists. And the government is only increasing its military adventurism. Sighs Stafford: “Western negotiators had hoped that, by permitting Iran to retain an enrichment capacity, and ending talk of military action, Tehran would feel less threatened. Yet its actions have triggered the opposite outcome.”

Law prof: Dems’ Long History of Stealing Court Seats

Democrats complain Republicans “stole” Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court seat, but they’ve been stealing federal-court seats for years, argues Steven Calabresi at The Hill. That’s important because “federal courts of appeals decide over 60,000 cases a year while the Supreme Court decides only 80.” During the last six years of Bill Clinton’s presidency, Republicans controlled the Senate and “confirmed almost all his judges without filibustering any of them.” Democrats didn’t return the favor for George W. Bush, however, and as a result Bush “appointed 62 federal Court of Appeals judges, four fewer than Clinton, and 261 federal trial judges, 46 fewer than Clinton.” In practice, Calabresi writes, that meant Republicans could get mostly moderates confirmed, while Democrats packed the courts with left-wing ideologues.

Campaign trail: The Case for Sen. Kid Rock

Don’t be so quick to dismiss rumors that rap-rocker Kid Rock is mulling a Senate run. At Politico, Tim Alberta and Zach Stanton admit that, yes, Kid Rock’s lyrics and public behavior have long been gleefully offensive. But don’t underestimate him: Kid Rock has “given seven-figure sums to charity and capped ticket prices to his concerts at $20 to make them accessible to working-class fans.” And he’s “earned a reputation in his native southeast Michigan” as civic-minded, “helping local businesses and headlining major philanthropic events.” If he jumps into the GOP primary, an operative tells Politico, “he’s the prohibitive favorite.” And while incumbent Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow will be tough to beat, Kid Rock “has nearly universal name-identification that will earn him free media to make up for any lack of traditional ground game.”

Centrist: Trump Advisers Should Learn Truman’s Lesson

If President Trump’s foreign-policy team wants to turn public opinion back toward internationalism, thus nudging the president that way as well, they should learn from Harry Truman, says Walter Russell Mead in The Wall Street Journal. In 1947, Truman, too, faced right-left populist revolt over America’s stretched foreign commitments when the president needed to get public approval for efforts to save Europe from Soviet domination. Intellectuals wanted to paint a “nuanced” picture of the threat. But Sen. Arthur Vandenberg told Truman that the only way he’d succeed was to “scare the hell out of the country.” And so he did, teaching an important lesson: “Truman took the fears of the public seriously and tried to give them constructive expression: They were a crucial source of the political energy needed to power America’s global engagement.”

From the right: Trump Will Probably Fire Mueller

President Trump is likely to end up firing special investigator Robert Mueller, argues Rich Lowry at National Review. In his now-infamous interview with The New York Times, Trump made clear he would resist Mueller’s Russia inquiry expansion into his business finances. Yet “this kind of expansion of an investigation is what special counsels do, and there is nothing to indicate that Mueller is going to limit his work, in fact the opposite.” And while it would be a bad idea to fire Mueller, “we can be pretty certain that Trump didn’t sign up for a free-floating investigation into his businesses and that he believes — and must feel confirmed in the belief — that fortune favors the recklessly bold.”

Compiled by Seth Mandel