WaPo’s David Ignatius has a column on Trump and Iran that somehow manages to credit Trump with actual diplomatic skills: Trump needs creativity to resolve the Iran crisis. The two-week pause is a start.
President Donald Trump is no JFK. But he just did something in the Iran crisis that reminds me a bit of Kennedy’s decision to step away from the cacophony of ExComm and explore options. Trump said in a statement on Thursday that, rather than immediately bomb the underground Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow as Israel has been urging, “I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.”
Trump’s decision to “back down” from bombing Fordow angered hawks. But I think he was wise to take more time to pursue a binding, verifiable agreement to enforce his sensible policy that Iran must not obtain a nuclear weapon. To gain that negotiating space, he resisted pressure to jump into a war that Congress hasn’t declared, and that the public doesn’t support, according to a new Washington Post poll.
Let’s be clear. This isn’t Trump being diplomatic or giving Iran a graceful way out. This is Trump being scared to make a decision. He’s giving himself time in the hopes that the crisis will just go away, like Covid was supposed to just “go away” in a “miracle.” He doesn’t want to go to war not for any high-minded reason but because he promised his base he wouldn’t. Of course he also promised his base he wouldn’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon, either.
Trump is also a lousy negotiator, and he is clearly not handling Iran with any kind of diplomatic skills. And unlike, say, China, Iran is not interested in playing along and pretending that Trump is good at negotiations. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his brain, Trump just might be aware that he is not going to come out on top in any talks with Iran — which doesn’t want to talk to him right now anyway.
Ignatius suggests that Trump can handle the Iran crisis the way Kennedy handled the Cuban missile crisis:
As Trump steps back from the din of conflicting advice, what can he learn from Kennedy’s Cuba ploy? The Cuba denouement was a classic bit of diplomatic doublespeak that saved face for both sides.
Leave aside the fact that Trump doesn’t learn, period. This strategy goes counter to Trump’s basic conviction that there are only winners and losers, nothing in between. It would also require Trump to somehow have enough self-control not to boast about Iran bending the knee to him.
Ignatius does at least acknowledge this is a problem:
Over the next two weeks, Trump’s communications need to be more consistent and subtle. In the Middle East, trying to humiliate people isn’t a good tactic. . . .
Trump’s bargaining position is so powerful that he can afford a gentler touch. He should think twice about bombastic social media posts, and focus on the major diplomatic accomplishment within his reach.
I don’t see Trump’s position as all that powerful. The Iranians don’t trust him at all (as Ignatius admits); the bunker buster bombs may not work (Fordo is buried pretty deep); and Iran has asymmetrical warfare resources that it can use in response to any military action. Plus Iran knows the history of the US-Iraq war and how badly that ended for us.
I generally think of David Ignatius as being more realistic than this, so I have to say it is possible that this whole column is part of a campaign to get Trump to do the right thing — or at least not to do the wrong thing, which is to start a war with Iran that will make the Iraq quagmire look like a picnic in a park. If so, more power to him. In the meantime, I need to lie down and let the nauseating feeling pass.
Thank you for your attention to this natter [sic].
