To the Editor:
Re “Trump Faults Allies Over Their Lukewarm Responses to Securing Strait” (news article, March 17):
President Trump starts a war with Iran without consulting our allies or our own Congress. He has imposed tariffs on many of these allies. Now, when he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have misjudged Iran’s responses, he gets annoyed that our allies, unlike the Republican Party, won’t do what he wants.
Essentially, Mr. Trump wants the allies to bail him out of a bad situation of his own making, and to engage in actions that could involve them directly in the Trump-Iran war. Why should they, after he has threatened Greenland, raised tariffs on them, disparaged them and upended what they had believed to be a secure international order?
He is offering them a deal with high risk and low return, a type of deal he himself would indeed disparage.
Simon Cohen Queens
To the Editor:
Donald Trump doesn’t seem to understand why no one is coming to his aid in his quest to open up the Strait of Hormuz.
He was apparently never taught as a child that the only way to have a friend is to be one.
Throughout his political life he has been an obnoxious bully, spewing insults with reckless abandon to representatives of our closest allies — as well as everyone else who ruffles his feathers.
He has apparently never read about casting your bread upon the waters (Ecclesiastes 11). And he absolutely has no idea what diplomacy consists of.
Mr. Trump is a one-man wrecking machine who has no idea how to fix what he has broken. Why should anyone accede to his demands?
Michaeline R. Fedder Baltimore
To the Editor:
President Trump’s attack on Iran is more like Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine than Mr. Trump and his party want to admit. In each case, a stronger power moved to overthrow a weaker government with little preparation and little regard for the consequences to the region or the world. And in both cases, the current war is not the end point; other targets are already in sight.
My great hope is that the people of Iran will eventually have a better government, perhaps one more like Ukraine’s. My great fear is that my country’s government is becoming more like Russia’s.
Jerome Vail San Francisco
To the Editor:
Re “A Presidency Characterized by ‘Epic Fury,’” by Peter Baker (White House Memo, front page, March 17):
There will be two events in 2026 that will be remembered for being called Epic Fury.
The first is President Trump’s war of choice against Iran. The second Epic Fury will be what hits the Republican Party nationwide in the November midterms as American voters send a message of disapproval of what Mr. Trump and his MAGA allies have done to our country and democracy.
Robert S. Carroll Staten Island
The High Cost of Opera, Not Just at the Met
To the Editor:
Re “Met Opera’s Fervent Hunt for Funding” (Arts, March 9):
The Met Opera has done just about everything it could to deal with its budget problems but, alas, with the high costs of labor, sets and world-class singers, it’s just too expensive.
I know this firsthand. In my 16 years as president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I watched our opera program shrink because of cost. We used to joke that more money is lost by intermission when an opera is presented than in an entire season of theater.
Yes, large institutions have large expenses: maintaining historic spaces, the rising costs of materials, providing substantial jobs, huge theaters to fill. And what happens if it flops? It’s show biz! It’s easy to say that wealthy board members can pick up the tab, but the tab continues to grow, and serious donor fatigue has set in.
The level of fund-raising required is now practically unattainable. If we want New York City to be the nation’s cultural capital, to continue to draw tens of millions tourists annually and be able to provide inexpensive tickets so that the arts are accessible to all, we need a sweeping survival plan — not just for opera but for the whole arts sector, small and large organizations alike.
I hope that Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his newly appointed commissioner of cultural affairs, Diya Vij, will read this. I also hope that every individual donor, foundation and corporate leader who has abandoned support of the arts is reading, too.
Art is one of the few things a society produces that survives from generation to generation. Isn’t that worth saving?
Karen Brooks Hopkins Brooklyn The writer is the president emerita of the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
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