29 Mar 2024
Tuesday 2 August 2016 - 10:41
Story Code : 225330

Harvard Iran expert: Trumps words against JCPOA rhetorical

Tehran, July 31, IRNA An Iranian expert at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center has said that Donald Trumps recent comments on tearing up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) are just rhetorical made as part of his presidential election campaigns.


Dr. Payam Mohseni said that any move to this end would be a clear win for Iran as the US would receive international blame for violating the agreement that is between the p5+1 and Iran--the agreement is not just between the US and Iran.

Trump, the Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2016 election, has repeatedly denounced the landmark nuclear deal made between Iran and the world six major powers (US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany) in July 2015 saying he would kill it if elected as US president. He said recently said if he was elected as president he would renegotiate the nuclear deal.

Reacting to Trumps claims, Irans Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said after a lecture in Stockholm, Sweden, in June that the deal 'is not an Iran-US agreement for the Republican front-runner or anybody else to renegotiate. It's an international understanding annexed to a Security Council resolution.'

Dr. Payam Mohseni, the Iran Project Director and Fellow for Iran Studies at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said that Trumps statements are mostly rhetorical for his elite supporters and his mass voter base.

He made the remarks during a recent exclusive interview with IRNA.

The followings are excerpts of his interview with Irans official News agency:

- Trumps statements about tearing up the JCPOA

No, that is not very likely. That would be a clear win for Iran as the US would receive international blame for violating the agreement that is between the p5+1 and Iran--the agreement is not just between the U.S. and Iran. Trumps statements are mostly rhetorical for his elite supporters and his mass voter base. It does however present and solidify greater animosity towards Iran. For example, at the republican convention in Cleveland, immediately after Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York City and Trump supporter, declared that they must explicitly combat Islamic extremist terrorism, and then immediately jumped to the topic of the nuclear agreement with Iran and how it has given billions of dollars to a state sponsor of terrorism. This situates Iran within a paradigm of Islamophobia and links it with global terrorism, blaming Iran for Islamic extremism while leaving out Saudi Arabia and others. For Republican elites and mass supporters who may not be able to distinguish between different Muslim actors, this means Iran, ISIS, and al-Qaeda are all essentially the same -- the irony that Iran is in fact on the front lines fighting ISIS is of course lost on the audience.

- US 2016 presidential election

The US presidential election campaigns have been very astonishing and mark a departure from previous elections. They have demonstrated that many Americans have become disaffected and mistrustful of the US political establishmentleading to protest and anti-status quo votes on both ends of the political spectrum. This is a result of the gradual decline of the US middle class and perceptions in the decline of power and greatness of the country for manydue to various reasons such as political corruption, immigration, the economy, and foreign policy. On the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders attracted much attention and support of those critical of the Democratic Party establishment who favored a more staunchly redistributionist platform and critiqued the existing political elite networkseventually pushing Hillary Clinton to lean a bit more left on issues such as healthcare and education as the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party.

On the Republican Party side, the shocking rise and victory of Donald Trump as the nominee of the party has nearly torn apart and greatly changed the platform and power relations within the Republican Party. Many of the old establishment are highly antagonistic towards Trump and view his platform of populism and anti-immigrationwith a move away from the etiquette of politics in the USas a threat to the future of the part.

Interestingly, in public opinion surveys of Americans, many Americans do not seem to be attracted to any of either candidates policy platforms. Rather, many are driven by their high dislike of the other candidatemeaning that people vote for Trump to prevent a Clinton victory, and others vote for Clinton to prevent a Trump victory. According to a poll carried out by Reuters last May, a majority of each candidates supporters signaled they would vote for Clinton or Trump in order to keep their opponent out of the White House--not because they supported their candidates positions. Shockingly, only 6% of Trump supporters said they liked him personally and 11% said the same for Clinton. The degree of dislike of the candidates is quite surprising. In contrast, Obama had higher than 60% likeability in 2008. One of the implications is that the elections will be very divisive, and depending on the election results, it is likely that whoever becomes the next president of the United States will be faced with a deeply divided and polarized society.


- US foreign policy in its presidential election

While most of the focus in the presidential campaigns is on domestic US politics and how to make the US great again, it would be false to create a dichotomy between the importance of domestic and foreign policies within the campaign discourse. Both candidates take different positions on foreign policy and the role it should play in restoring American power. Clinton believes the US should take a more active role internationally in terms of leadership. Unlike President Obama, she would thus be more sympathetic to interventionist policies. Trump, however, in many ways would be an extension of President Obamas policies. Trump appears to be more restrained in terms of foreign policy goals and campaigns on a platform that seems more isolationist and realistic in how to deal with other states. For example, he has openly praised Russian President Putin, and has criticized the wars against Iraq and Libya. Further, in an interview with the New York Times, Trump stated that we are going to take care of this country [U.S.] first before we worry about everybody else in the world. He perceives ISIS as a greater threat than the regime in Syria, and when it comes to Turkey, Trump also did not criticize the post-coup purges being carried out by Erdogan, saying it was not appropriate for the US to criticize other countries civil liberties when there are civil liberties problems in the US.

However, Trumps foreign policy positions are not very clear overall and there are mixed signals as to whether he is a realist or a neo-conservative. Some elite members of his camp are neo-conservatives. Michael Flynn, who at one point was a contender to be Trumps Vice President, has published a book together with Michael Ledeen, a leading neo-conservative figure who is very critical of Iran. The book is titled the Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. The book argues that the worlds dictatorships, which include Russia, North Korea, and Iran, form a network to combat democracy and the US, and they argue that the US must eliminate these threats. But it seems that there is room for pragmatism on dictatorships that work with the US versus those that are anti-US. Russia, for example, could be worked with; whereas Iran is clearly an enemy.

Domestically, however, Trump parallels much of President Richard Nixons playbook of being the law and order candidate. He is very much concerned on domestic security, including the recent police shootings as well as curbing Muslim immigration and Islamic extremism in the US.

- US future role in the Middle East

In general, irrespective of who wins, there will be a greater trend in American policy to decrease direct US power projection in the Middle East, particularly militarily, and to have other countries assume a greater share of the burden of security than the US is currently undertaking. While the US is now self-sufficient in domestic oil production, however, the Middle East and Saudi Arabia will continue to be important to the US as regional oil can shape global market and prices for oil. Additionally, the trade routes of the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf is paramount for the global supply of oil and the US has devoted a huge naval presence in order to protect its oil interests and that of its Persian Gulf allies. It is difficult to tell what exact policy a new administration will follow in the Middle East especially since the region is so volatile and instability is rife. The Arab state system is under significant strain and greater future stability is unlikely.

Further, the US will remain interested in the Middle East because of the regions geo-strategic importance in world affairs, the presence of Israel, and crucial international trade routes which cross through the region, among other factors. The presence of an extensive network of American military bases across the Middle East and Central Asia save for just a couple of countries is testament to the importance the US places in this region. While oil and energy concerns are very important motivating factors for US involvement in the Middle East -- they are not the only ones.

Based on his statements, it seems that Trumps policies will be more similar to President Obama on the Middle East. That however is not certain due to some of his key supporters and the mixed signals that sends. However, Clinton will likely be more accommodating of US allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia.

Obama may try to make peace in Syria as his last important move during presidency. However that is unlikely and any peace will likely not be very durable. There are very deep structural factors involving a range of international and regional players and the current policies of the actors involved will make a resolution of the conflict in Syria quite difficult.

- Future of JCPOA in the post-Obama era

Both candidates will likely be more hawkish towards Iran than President Obama. Neither will violate the terms of the agreement as this is an international agreement and if blame falls on the US, then it will be very difficult and costly for it to re-start the process of getting together as extensive an international sanctions regime against Iran as it was able to gather in the lead up to the nuclear agreement.

However, they may both be more aggressive than Obama on Iran on other issues such as regional policy and move to take more hardline security measures against Iran in the Middle East. However, it is also possible that Trump is more pragmatic with Iran and deals with the country like a businessman.

The question of Iran still remains important and what happens beyond year 10 of the agreement, in which the timeline of the current agreement nuclear restrictions begin to be lifted. It is important to remember that the JCPOA agreement was signed with specific timelines of restrictions for various nuclear and non-nuclear activities.

- US recent anti-Iran moves in the post-JCPOA era

Those type of punitive actions will always exist and increase irrespective of who is in the White House. There are different political forces in the U.S., and some clearly see Iran as an enemy that must be confronted coercively by all means. These political forces are distributed across different segments of the US bureaucracy, government, lobby groups, and private sector, and they actively work to make their policy and ideology dominant.

For Obama however, diplomacy was the key. I think diplomacy will still be important for either candidate if they become president...but the pressures being brought against Iran are not just linked to the nuclear agreement -- this was clear from the very beginning. The only sanctions which were technically removed were those linked to Irans nuclear program. Iran and the US are still strategic rivals in the Middle East and beyond and the US will continue to bear pressure in order to contain Iran, including via sanctions which is a favorite policy tool of US foreign policy. While the issue of whether to work with the Islamic Republic is paramount in US policy circles, the larger establishment viewpoint is that this is not possible to work with Iran as long as Iran continues with its revolutionary policies.

By IRNA
https://theiranproject.com/vdcexn8w7jh8wxi.1kbj.html
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