On Tuesday Donald Trump said of Iran: "We are not looking for regime change. We are not looking for that at all. We'll see what happens. But a lot of progress has been made."
A lot of lies have been told by the squatter in the White House, making it hard to know for certain whether any of those four sentences—other than we’ll see what happens—is true. We certainly will see. As for “a lot of progress,” if by that is meant giving Iranian hard-liners a political advantage against the more moderate President Hassan Rouhani by making his championing of the 2015 nuclear accord look weak, then—mission accomplished.
Yes, we’ll see what happens, but whatever does, we should never forget that Trump started us down the road to a potential military clash with Iran when he withdrew from the accord last year despite there being no reason whatsoever to do so other than obsessive antipathy against his predecessor in the Oval Office. Absolutely nothing was to be gained, and much lost, by that unilateral withdrawal, which has harmed U.S. relations with longstanding allies and raised rather than lowered the possibility Iran may build a nuclear weapon. Whether you agree with the approach or not, coercive diplomacy can be effective. But coercion without diplomacy almost always fails.
Now, after reimposing old sanctions and imposing new ones on Iran, plus promising that nation’s “obliteration” if it behaves in a way Trump dislikes, and alleging from misunderstanding a new report that Iran has been breaking the deal by secretly enriching more uranium than it is allowed under the accord, he says Iran’s leaders want to talk even though they’ve repeatedly made it clear that they won’t do that as long as the sanctions are in place. They’ve punctuated that rejection with two announced breaches of the nuclear accord whose very existence hangs by a thread. Nahal Toosi at Politico writes:
“Trump got rid of the Iran nuclear deal because it was Barack Obama’s agreement,” said Jarrett Blanc, a former State Department official who helped oversee the 2015 deal’s implementation. “If you were to present to Trump the same deal and call it Trump’s deal, he’d be thrilled.”
The administration’s confusing messaging is a result of warring between two major factions, U.S. officials say, with Trump in his own separate lane. The infighting has been deeply frustrating to those involved in the debate. “In the past, even when I personally disagreed with a policy, I could explain its logic,” a U.S. official said. “Now I can’t even do that.”
A wise Trump—I know, I know—having complaints about Iran’s missile development and destabilizing actions could have built on the agreement hammered out by President Barack Obama’s administration, the other four members of the U.N. Security Council, Germany, and Iran. Trump could have initiated negotiations with Iran on those issues, and sought to toughen the already-tough nuclear agreement while keeping it in place. Instead, by reneging, by threatening allies, rivals, and Iran alike, he’s made any negotiations anytime soon next to impossible even if he takes up Sen. Rand Paul’s request on the golf links this weekend to lower tensions through secret talks with Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.
There’s no doubt that the sanctions have put Iran in a tight spot. Last June, Iran exported 2.5 million barrels of crude oil a day. Last month, experts put those exports at 400,000 or so barrels a day. That’s damaging to a nation that gets 60% of government revenue from such sales. Iran is still trying to get Germany, France, and the U.K. to make effective their trade mechanism for getting around at least some of the sanctions. Meanwhile, the Iranian hard-liners have already won the argument that the U.S. government under Trump can’t be trusted not to violate any new agreement that might be negotiated now. And the resistance policy they are pushing runs the risk that war might break out.
Trump’s typical business approach of bullying other parties into deals they don’t want isn’t working on Iran. As David Brumberg notes:
Trump seems to see that the threat of force is part of a bullying strategy that will force Iran’s compliance with little more than a quick street brawl conducted by his enforcers.
What he does not seem to understand is that coercive diplomacy only works if the party that threatens force also offers its adversary a politically viable option to economic war or military conflict. This was the premise of President Obama’s approach to Iran. Having based his domestic and foreign policies on repudiating all of the key choices that Obama made, Trump perceives offering incentives to Iran as humiliating. An imperfect policy of carrots and sticks, one that both engages and tries to contain an Iranian regime that will not give up its efforts to project power in its immediate neighborhood, may be a choice that Trump cannot swallow without losing face on the front that counts most for him: the US political arena. [...]
Even if Trump eventually reaches out to a regime that he insists continues to be “ready to make a deal,” this may be a case of too little, too late. Stung by a major case of buyer’s remorse, Iran’s leaders will avoid any measure that gives credence to the White House.
As has been obvious to critics since America’s withdrawal from the nuclear accord last May, Trump’s loathsome “policy” toward Iran is counterproductive. Unless its trajectory is adjusted, the accord will soon be dead, without even the slim chance there now is for reviving it.
It didn’t take geniuses to predict that Trump’s erratic approach in this matter would engender growing tension and the potential for widespread geopolitical fallout.