28 Mar 2024
Saturday 29 July 2017 - 17:36
Story Code : 270228

The Mask Is Off: Trump is seeking war with Iran

LobeLog | Trita Parsi: Something extraordinary has happened in Washington. President Donald Trump has made it clear, in no uncertain terms and with no effort to disguise his duplicity, that he will claim that Tehran is cheating on the nuclear deal by Octoberthe facts be damned. In short, the fix is in. Trump will refuse to accept that Iran is in compliance and thereby set the stage for a military confrontation. His advisors have even been kind enough to explain how they will go about this. Rarely has a sinister plan to destroy an arms control agreement and pave the way for war been so openly telegraphed.

The unmasking of Trumps plans to sabotage the nuclear deal began two weeks ago when he reluctantly had to certify that Iran indeed was in compliance. Both the US intelligence as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency had confirmed Tehrans fair play. But Trump threw a tantrum in the Oval Office and berated his national security team for not having found a way to claim Iran was cheating. According toForeign Policy, the adults in the roomSecretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and National Security Advisor H. R. McMastereventually calmed Trump down but only on the condition that they double down on finding a way for the president to blow up the deal by October.

Prior to the revelation of Trumps Iran certification meltdown, most analysts and diplomats believed that Trumps rhetoric on Iran was just thatempty talk. His bark was worse than his bite, as demonstrated when he certified Irans compliance back in April and when he renewed sanctions waivers in May. The distance between his rhetoric and actual policy was tangible. Rhetorically, Trump officials described Iran as the root of all problems in the Middle East and as the greatest state sponsor of terror. Trump even suggested he might quit the deal.

In action, however, President Trump continued to waive sanctions and admitted that Iran was adhering to the deal. As a result, many concluded that Trump would continue to fulfill the obligations of the deal while sticking to his harsh rhetoric in order to appease domestic opponents of the nuclear dealas well as Trumps allies in Saudi Arabia and Israel.

But now, assessments are changing. The tangible danger of Trumps malice on the Iran dealas well as the danger of the advice of the adults in the roombecame further clarified this week as tidbits of the reality TV stars plans began to leak.

How to Wreck a Deal

Recognizing that refusing to certify Iran would isolate the United States, Trumps advisors gave him another plan. Use the spot-inspections mechanism of the nuclear deal, they suggested, to demand access to a whole set of military sites in Iran. Once Iran balkswhich it will since the mechanism is only supposed to be used if tangible evidence exists that those sites are being used for illicit nuclear activitiesTrump can claim that Iran is in violation, blowing up the nuclear deal while shifting the blame to Tehran.

Thus, the advice of the adults in the roomthose who we are supposed to restrain Trumpwas not to keep the highly successful nuclear deal that has taken both an Iranian bomb and war with Iran off the table. Rather, they recommended killing it in a manner that would conceal Trumps malice and shift the cost to Iran.

According toThe New York Times,the groundwork for this strategy has already been laid. Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Corker (R-TN) calls this strategy radical enforcement of the deal. If they dont let us in, Corker toldThe Washington Post, boom. Then he added: You want the breakup of this deal to be about Iran. You dont want it to be about the U.S., because we want our allies with us.

This is a charade, a rerun of the machinations that resulted in the Iraq war. It doesnt matter what Iran does or doesnt do. If it were up to Trump, hed never have accepted that Iran was in compliance in the first place. He admitted as much to theWall Street Journal. If it was up to me, I would have had them [the Iranians] non-compliant 180 days ago.

Sounding supremely confident of the radical implementation strategy, Trump added that I think theyll be noncompliant [in October]. In so doing, he further confirmed doubts that the process is about determining whether Iran is in compliance or not. The administration is committed to finding a way to claim Iran has violated the accord, regardless of the factsjust as George W. Bush did with Iraq.

Potential for Backfire

But Trumps confidence may be misplaced on two levels. First, abusing the inspection mechanisms of the deal may prove harder than Trump has been led to believe. The inspections are the cornerstone of the deal, and Irans ability to cheat on the deal is essentially non-existent as long as the integrity and efficiency of the inspections remain in tact. But if Trump begins to abuse the mechanism to fabricate a conflict, he will end up undermining the inspections regime and actually enhance the ability of those in Iran who would like to pursue a covert nuclear program. Precisely because of the commitment of Europe and others to non-proliferation, they are likely to resist Trumps efforts to tinker with the inspections.

Second, by revealing his hand, Trump has displayed his duplicity for all to see. That includes the American public, whose anti-war sentiments remain strong and are a key reason they supported the nuclear deal in the first place.

The American public knows the Iraq playbook quite well. Trumps own supporters remain enraged by the disastrous war with Iraq. They know how they got played. Its difficult to imagine why they would allow themselves to get played again by a president who has left little doubt about his intent to deceive.

Trita Parsi is the president of theNational Iranian American Counciland author ofLosing an Enemy Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy.
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