Just a couple of weeks ago, President Donald Trump’s naysayers were having to re-think on his Korea strategy and, potentially, his wider unorthodox political style. Perhaps, they were being forced to ask themselves, his brinkmanship really was responsible for what is looking like a rapprochement between North and South Korea and potentially the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
Alternatively, with encouragement from China, Kim Jong-un was already intending to move towards a “weapons for peace and aid” deal and Trump’s blustering was just dumb luck.
Those who were prepared to start giving Trump the benefit of the doubt are again having to re-think what he is doing on the world stage, beyond diminishing the US’ stature. Yesterday’s decision to cancel the US support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan for Action (JCPOA) has openly split the Western alliance.
What’s the problem here?
The JCPOA led to Iran agreeing to stop its nuclear weapons program in exchange for dropping economic sanctions. Now Iran may feel emboldened to return to developing nuclear weapons in the face of what will be challenging re-imposed sanctions.
Should Iran embark upon such a course of action, Israel would be likely to pre-emptively strike at such weapons development facilities. This may in turn prompt Iran into open conflict with Israel.
Israel has already struck at Iranian and pro-Iranian military positions in Syria but military strikes in that conflict have allowed, under its proxy conditions, a fig-leaf of detachment. Existing Israel-Iran tensions are therefore relatively contained in a war in which Iran and its proxies are only some of many actors in the field.
A direct Israeli strike on Iran would, however, be a different matter altogether. There is potential for Trump’s decision, therefore, to produce a new regional war.
The (bad) politics behind the move
What is concerning is that there is no good, much less compelling, reason for the US to have gone down this path. Trump’s use of Iran being a “sponsor of terror” as a key part of his rationale for ending the JCPOA only makes marginal sense.
There is little doubt that Iran’s support for Hezbollah, and rebels in Yemen, is very much part of Iran’s attempt to establish a regional hegemony. But this is, much more so than a direct war with Iran, a containable and more or less conventional threat.
Beyond concern for sponsoring “terrorism” — for which one might have looked more closely at some of the US’ Middle-Eastern allies — Trump based his decision on an Israeli “intelligence” briefing by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s claims on this issue were flatly contradicted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, saying that Iran was in full compliance with the JCPOA.
In large part, where the US positions itself in relation to Iran is dependent upon its close relationship with Saudi Arabia, which is Iran’s chief regional opponent. In part, too, punishing Iran for a claimed but unsubstantiated breach of the JCPOA will play well with Trump’s conservative voters, many of whom still remember the humiliating Iran hostage crisis of 1979-80.
But Trump’s decision does not reflect the facts on the ground in Iran and does not make strategic sense. No one wants to allow Iran off the nuclear weapons leash imposed under the JCPOA, and no one wants a possible war between Israel and Iran.
Donald Trump’s tearing up of the political “rule book” was what his supporters wanted, and he has done just that with his JCPOA decision. But his erratic decision-making has cast the US as a nation that is — and is seen to be — increasingly out of control.
Damien Kingsbury is Deakin University’s Professor of International Politics.
It’s about the Saudis where Trump has business and his son in law’s interests in the West Bank. Iran are no angels, but the Saudis and some of the Gulf states are true mongrels and have funded those who kill our soldiers on an umber of occasions. Who the hell do we think pays the Taliban’s bills?
There is an alternative take on North Korea and the current move to negotiate than attributing it to Trump. The Kims needed to survive, and looking at the international scene the conclusion would have been that you are only relatively free from external intervention if you have both nuclear weapons and delivery systems for them. Kim the youngest accelerated that (and there could be a range of reasons for this) and now he has them in hand he can negotiate.
Kim may consider that Trump is a good mark to try working on – both to diffuse or delay his hostility while he is in the Presidency, and to see if Kim can sneak something through given Trump’s lack of interest in detail and desire for some grand moments of achievement for himself.
I think one thing we can be sure of is that despite what grand words or long term ‘deal’ is agreed North Korea will not be giving up its nuclear capability. That is its insurance policy. The great irony may be that this is exactly what Trump has just taught the Iranians – you are only secure if you have nuclear weapons.
As someone who has reported on American politics in the US — some 30 years — which included following in detail for the two years the tough back and forth of negotiations in Geneva and Vienna to arrive at the JCPOA, the Trump decision to take America out of the agreement is an act of wilful calculated stupidity. This act changes at the very least the balance of power in the Middle-East at the least and a nuclear winter at the worst. Of the two choices as I see it nuclear winter would bring a truly lasting peace to the Middle-east in that everyone would be dead.
The unfortunate game that is now in play is that the change in the balance of power in the Middle-east is the manifest destiny of the ultimate fascism of Israeli Prime Minster Bibi Netanyahu. Bibi has a dream of realising the state of Greater Israel which is way larger than the the Israel laid out in 1948. Not everyone and probably most Jews in Israel do not adhere to this vision but that Bibi is so invested in this, it is why he is so preoccupied with Iran’s rise and why he wants to stamp it out in a crushing defeat in what he believes will be a short war. Now war he might get but it won’t be short. Bibi is short on credentials as a wartime Prime Minister. Given whatever crisis that inflames him at any particular time such as the recommended indictment on corruption charges, Bibi goes to ground and hides. So Israelis will be found wanting in his attempt in leading the them against the perceived ‘Philistines’ of Iran.
Following the negotiations and the conduct of the Iranians in these negotiations I found them to be exemplary in their conduct. Hard bargainers certainly but their word and following the letter of the agreement has been true.
Iran as seen in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s doesn’t give up from what I’ve seen. That war ended in a truce as both sides fought to exhaustion, death by poison gas being a major factor. The huge loss of manpower is why Iran fights small wars of proxy in Syria, Yemen and controls Iraqi politics in Baghdad in Iraq and finances and supports Hezbollah in the Lebanon.
So as a optimist generally I am pessimistic of how this callous grand play of Trump’s ends. I often tell friends that this jerk can get us all killed. The telling feature of this shirker from military service is that the rapture of his braggadocio is that he thinks that his actions in this won’t kill him. Little does he know. Such fools do guide us now. Yes indeed they do.
JFI, “.. a dream of realising the state of Greater Israel ..” that would be Eretz Israel, from the Great River (Nile) to the Euphrates which is still a wet dream for the crazies.
Professor Kingsbury offers startling new information in stating that “The JCPOA led to Iran agreeing to stop its nuclear weapons program in exchange for dropping economic sanctions.” The Obama administration’s negotiators must have been truly skilled to secure Iranian agreement to cease a program that’s never been admitted to, nor proven to exist.
What the JCPOA actually involved was Iran agreeing to onerous conditions well beyond those required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (to which Iran has long been a signatory) in exchange for partial relief from US-led economic terror. The sanctions were illegitimate, and arguably illegal, when pushed by Obama and will continue to be under Trump.
The range of the F15/16 Eagles, eg of the Israeli air force, fully laden with extra fuel tanks (forget munitions) is barely 3,500 miles.
The areas of interest in Iran are a great deal further than the early morning sorties into Syria.
The 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor was the effective range fully armed
Unless the IAF is intent on being some latter day Holy Wind the only way it could attack Iran would be with US assistance & refuelling – lotsa luck getting clearance over Iraq otherwise.