What's happening:

1. On June 24, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met both Saudi Arabia's King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, and will next head to the United Arab Emirates to further solidify a regional coalition against Iran. National security adviser John Bolton is in Jerusalem to meet Israeli and Russian officials in hopes of recruiting Russian support in containing Iran.
2. On June 25–26, Jared Kushner will convene his Middle East peace meeting in Bahrain, with attendees from the Gulf states but without either the Israelis or the Palestinians. The plan asks other countries to pay for $50 billion in economic policies that no key players expect to yield a peace agreement. At the moment, the most promising outcome is a loose list of commitments.
3. On June 28–29, Trump will join the G20 Summit in Japan to discuss the global economy and security issues. The highlight will be Trump’s bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, yet the negotiating teams are still far from a trade deal and that conflict could complicate Chinese cooperation on North Korea.
4. On June 30, Trump will head to South Korea to meet with President Moon Jae-in, who is largely responsible for recent American diplomacy with North Korea and eager to resuscitate it.

Meanwhile, on June 26–27, Trump’s domestic opponents will have a 2-night national platform to criticize his policies during the Democratic presidential debates.

• Candidates are likely to highlight Trump’s careening on Iran, where tensions have escalated to the brink of war; catatonic nuclear negotiations with North Korea, where two leader-level summits have secured no firm results; and the unilateral trade war against China, which is straining the U.S. economy.

The bottom line: Trump’s Iran bombing flip-flop last week suggests that he and his team still lack a coherent vision for determining and executing their national security goals. The week ahead will show whether he and his team manage a swing back toward multilateral problem-solving or continue the go-it-alone approach that is increasingly isolating the U.S. from its allies.

Joel Rubin is the president of the Washington Strategy Group and a former deputy assistant secretary of state.

Details: A one-state solution — with Israel maintaining physical control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, potentially through annexation — would permanently deny political rights, economic freedom and a sense of justice to the 4.7 million Palestinians in those territories.

The catch: There are risks for Israel as well, including the potential for Palestinians to outnumber Jews given current population growth.

• That could mean either the end of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state or, as former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has said, Israel becoming an apartheid state, leading to permanent instability for Israel and deep resentment toward the U.S. across the Arab world.
• However, Israel doesn’t appear to be worried about the latter, as long as it has American backing to control the Palestinian territories without providing political rights.

Between the lines: Senators are attempting to safeguard the U.S.' interests in the Middle East and to protect Israel from what could ultimately be a counterproductive strategy.

• If the U.S. communicates a lack of support for a one-state solution, in which Palestinian political rights are denied, Israel could be less likely to see that outcome as an option. A Senate resolution would make this clear in a way the Trump administration has not.

Joel Rubin is the president of the Washington Strategy Group and a former deputy assistant secretary of state.

Background: In the year since the Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear deal, it has enacted severe sanctions that have taken a major bite out of Iran's economy, even as the International Atomic Energy Agency and the American intelligence community have found Iran to be holding up its side of the bargain.

Between the lines: The White House appears to believe that the U.S. will come out ahead whether Iran honors the nuclear deal or withdraws from it. This rose-colored policy logic recalls the statements that preceded the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, which was neither as straightforward nor as beneficial as promised.

• The unraveling of the deal would eliminate the last guardrail preventing increased conflict and renewed nuclear insecurity — with no current diplomatic table to which Iran could return, despite the administration’s claims to want a better deal.

The bottom line: A fuller public discussion of U.S. goals, and the risks of pursuing them, could help inform Iran policy before tensions reach a breaking point.

Joel Rubin is the president of the Washington Strategy Group and a former deputy assistant secretary of state.