Trita Parsi
Trita Parsi is the author of “Losing an Enemy — Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy” and the President of the National Iranian American Council. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion articles on CNN.
Trita Parsi is a regular contributor to VT.
CNNThe world has become so numb to the words of the President of the United States that it even dismisses threats of war as either a political distraction or a Trumpian negotiation tactic.
Indeed, Donald Trump’s threat to inflict on Iran “CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE” may very well have been an effort to divert attention from the Russia investigation. Others have dismissed the danger of the tweet since Trump did an about-face on North Korea, going from calling the North Korean dictator “rocket man” to a “very honorable” man. And, on Tuesday, Trump stated once again that he’s “ready to make a deal” with Iran.
But there are five reasons why a pivot from threats to diplomacy with Iran will be much harder — and why Trump’s reckless threats may trap the United States in yet another war.
1. Saudi Arabia and Israel oppose diplomacy. Japan and South Korea advocated it.
The geopolitical circumstances around North Korea differ vastly from that of the Middle East. In the North Korean case, America’s allies — and even its Chinese competitor — strongly opposed any military confrontation with Pyongyang and pushed for diplomacy. In fact, the pivot to diplomacy with North Korea had far more to do with the South Korean President’s maneuvering in the background than Kim Jong Un fearing Trump’s “fire and fury” or his sanctions.
In the Middle East, the situation is the opposite: American allies, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have long opposed US-Iran diplomacy (with an impressive track record of sabotaging attempts at US-Iran dialogue). Mindful of their influence in Washington and the Trump administration’s deference to them, any attempt by Trump to pivot to diplomacy with Iran will likely face a formidable challenge by these Middle Eastern powers.
Moreover, there is no obvious “South Korea” in the Middle East today that can quietly do behind-the-scenes shuttle diplomacy to bring the United States and Iran together — at least not one Trump would engage.
Former President Barack Obama needed a go-between to make diplomacy with Iran bear fruit. In that case, it was the country of Oman, which helped establish a secret diplomatic channel with Iran, paving the way for the historic nuclear deal of 2015. But Trump is unlikely to turn to Oman precisely because Obama did so.
2. Trump thinks pressure will force Iran to negotiate. He’s wrong.
Trump has stated that verbal escalation and sanctions will force Iran to come to the table. The logic is based on a misread of what brought about the nuclear deal of 2015. The conventional Washington narrative reads that Obama crippled Iran’s economy till the rulers of Tehran grudgingly agreed to negotiate. But the secret negotiations between the US and Iran in Oman reveals a very different picture.
While Obama’s sanctions were truly crushing — Iran’s GDP
contracted more than 35% between 2012 and 2015 — Tehran did not lack leverage of its own. Its response to the sanctions was to double down on its nuclear program and move ever closer to a nuclear weapon. Just as sanctions put pressure on Tehran, more centrifuges put the squeeze on Washington.
It wasn’t until the Obama administration secretly made a major concession to Iran — agreeing that Iran could continue to enrich uranium on its own soil — that diplomacy started to bear fruit.
In other words, a policy solely centered on sanctions and pressure did not bring about the desired breakthrough in the talks. Ultimately, it was American flexibility that ended the standstill and elicited Iranian flexibility.
Two conclusions can be drawn from America’s past diplomatic experience with Iran. First, pressure alone will not work. Second, Iran will meet pressure with pressure. And herein lies the danger of Trump’s approach: Even if he does not intend to draw this to a conflict, he may quickly lose control over the situation once the Iranians decide to counter-escalate by, for instance, reactivating their nuclear program.
3. North Korea has a one-man dictator. Iran has politics.
North Korea is run by a one-man dictator with the political maneuverability to dramatically shift policy from testing nuclear weapons to sitting down with the man who hurled insults at him — without facing any domestic political consequences. Iran, on the other hand, has a complex political system where power is dispersed and not controlled by any single person or institute. Even Iran’s Supreme Leader — the most powerful man in Iran —
cannot act alone without taking into consideration both public and elite opinion.
Iran’s fractured politics and factional infighting renders any dramatic policy shift — particularly involving diplomacy with the United States — all the more difficult. President Hassan Rouhani is already
paying a political price for having been so “naive” as to negotiate with the “untrustworthy” Americans. The political space needed to restart negotiations, particularly after Iran adhered to the previous deal and Trump pulled out of it, simply does not exist right now and Trump’s rhetoric is not moving matters in the right direction.
4. Don’t forget: Trump hates Obama.
As Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group has pointed out, Trump’s antipathy toward Obama and his obsession with undoing Obama’s policy legacies should not be underestimated. As a Trump official
told the Atlantic, “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘F— Obama’ Doctrine,” he explained. “We’re the ‘F— Obama’ Doctrine.”
On Iran, that may not just translate into Trump killing the nuclear deal
against the advice of his Secretary of Defense. It may also mean that Trump will pursue a nuclear deal with North Korea at almost any cost (a problem Obama left largely untouched) while rejecting a deal with Iran (the country Obama decided to negotiate with). More than striking a “better deal” with Iran, Trump may think that truly sticking it to Obama necessitates burying diplomacy with Iran altogether.
5. Trump advisers don’t want a deal; they want regime collapse.
The members of Trump’s inner circle have changed dramatically over the past few months. The so-called “adults in the room,” who had a moderating effect on Trump, have largely been replaced with ideological hawks, such as National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. And
uber-hawk Tom Cotton has emerged as one of the senators whose advice and viewpoints Trump
pays close attention to.
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All three of these have a long track record of advocating confrontation with Iran. Bolton famously penned an op-ed in
the New York Times at the height of the nuclear negotiations titled “To Stop an Iranian Bomb, Bomb Iran.” As a congressman from the state of Kansas, Mike Pompeo quipped that bombing Iran would only take 2,000 fighter jet attacks, which he said “is not an insurmountable task for the coalition forces.” Cotton, in turn, is the author of the unprecedented letter in the midst of the nuclear talks, telling the leaders of Iran not to trust the President of the United States.
Going forward, the moderate voices inside the Trump White House will essentially be absent, while new advisers will likely egg on Trump to escalate tensions further — even though the Trump administration continues to claim that its goal is not regime change.
All of this amounts to a sobering reality: Trump is embarking on a path of escalation without having the exit ramps he had with North Korea. The danger now is not to overestimate the risk of war, but to underestimate it.
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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And a war is urgently needed to distract from homegrown shit in both countries and thos behind the curtain
LS…
Trump, Iran, China, Korea, Europe, NATO ! All the Fuzz & Tweets could be all smoke screens and the real thing may happen behind closed doors !
The Hebrews-Jews have taken the, ‘Chosen People’ story from the Babylonians, while in their captivity! The Babylonians adopted it from the, “Sumerian Epic of GILGAMESH”, one of their kings, Gilgamesh, who with his family and friends, were saved, CHOSEN, by one God, ‘EA’, who gave warning to Gilgamesh, to build a boat, (The Great Flood), since all the other Gods were unhappy about what the population was doing in the city of, SHURRUPAK, on the bank of the EUPHRATES, and are planning to unleash a great flood on them. Now this epic dates back to 3 thousand B.C., while the Hebrews were captives around 1500 B.C. The “Hebrews”, ‘that name originates from Old Egyptian, HEBREW..with a meaning of, ‘trespasser’, someone who is not liked, wanted in the neighborhood! Interesting!
“God/Creator gave us Reason not Religion.” Wrote our Thomas Paine some 240 years ago. All the religions are came about because of our ancestors, primitive, superstitious ignorance about the world around them. Control Freak Charlatans, like, Moses, Mohamed more recently one Joseph Smith and many others, to this day, have brainwashed, convinced the trusting clueless, searching for answers masses of humanity. The ‘offspring’ of religion is Ideology! From Marxist Bolshevik Communism, Fascism to Zionism, these movements, Religion and Ideology served the Control Freaks amongst us, ‘to divide and conquer’ their fellow Men. Religion and Ideology are the, “Curses of Mankind!”
LS…
I do not have the ultimate knowledge of all of this information but there must be a lot of truth in it. Most religions if not all are fraud and fabrications of mafia like charlatans who will suppress mankind with their perversion and diabolical rules. Wes Penre was the first who comes very close to the real story in my perception
We can see from the example, of the 12 billion he just grabbed to offset his damage to his own base of farmers, that he will force others to pay for his own mistakes. This means if he hits a roadblock in NK, then Jung Un sits in the driver seat and can extort at will. The more successful he is in NK, the less he will care about the ramifications of dropping the Iran deal. Either way, the big difference is, North Koreans are prone to converting to Evangelical Christianity, and Iranians are not. The transition from the moderates to the hawks, is due to their willingness to do whatever he wants just so they can have their religious beliefs imposed upon the world. There’s no polite way to say it. They convert their crimes into, “Gods interestingly mysterious ways and means plan”. The old, “the devil made me do it” , newly converted to “We can’t question Gods interesting and mysterious plan”. They are building straw houses in the wind on the premise of blind faith.
There is a saying in Persian (my interpretation probably does not do it justice – I’ll try anyway), “Don’t fear one who threatens you with a loud voice and lots of tough words trying to attract everyone’s attention, but fear him who speaks softly and has a humble attitude but no fear in his heart”. They knew psychology of war well before Europe and America were formed, that’s why for the past 200 years they’ve never attacked another country, but when and if attacked they respond with everything they have. Besides, the justice is on their side as they have the moral right to defend their land when attacked – that they will do like fire ants and defeat is not an option.
The saying fits well.
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