1. a) Define narrative.
b) What has been the long-standing U.S. narrative in the Middle East? (See paragraph 3)

2. How did President Trump change the narrative / U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East? (list 7 steps his administration took - see paragraphs 3-7)

3. In 2015, President Obama signed a nuclear deal with Iran in which he dropped sanctions against the country and sent the government $400 million in cash on an unmarked plane (money the U.S. held after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and the taking of U.S. hostages in Iran). What hostile actions has Iran taken following their agreement with President Obama? (list 3 - see para. 7)

4. a) Define conventional wisdom.
b) How has the Trump administration changed the conventional wisdom on foreign policy regarding North Korea? (list 6 steps - see para. 8-14)

5. Read each of the following points made by Mr. Huessy in this commentary. What is the general idea of these statements?

• Whether the administration can be successful [about changing the accepted narrative about North Korea] is an open question, but changes already secured in the Middle East give support to the administration's strategy and goals. (para. 2)
• The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, founded shortly after World War II, has still some 75 years later not settled "Palestinian refugees."  (para. 4-5)
• Trump's comment about having a really big "nuclear button" was not just macho bragging, but a statement of fact: no longer would the US tolerate North Korean attacks near or on the US, Japan or South Korea -- whether bombings, cross-border commando raids, sinking Navy vessels, shelling villages or grabbing American ships. such as the USS Pueblo. (para. 9)
• Critics may be right that such a deal (to get North Korea to completely give up its nukes) is not possible. (para. 14)
• The security implications of a permanently nuclear-armed North Korea, however, are sufficiently serious to support the administration's initiative to denuclearize the peninsula. (para. 15)
• The Trump administration took office after eight years of "strategic patience," which led only to more North Korean missiles, nuclear bombs and weapons shipments to terror states. The proponents of these policies -- having failed miserably -- now lecture the Trump administration about what America's North Korean policy should be. They seem, however, unwilling to see that the very nature of the discussion has now been changed -- to a necessary focus on North Korea's nuclear capability and not on the US military presence or ostensible US "hostile policy" in the region. (para. 24)

Answers to 1. a) and 4. a) are given below.