Chemi Shalev Trump’s Iran ploy could isolate Washington, implicate Netanyahu and divide U.S. Jews
***
haaretz.com
Donald Trump is set to execute a stunning
diplomatic reversal. By word of his mouth alone, Trump could cast a
fanatic, aggressive and imperialist country like Iran as an innocent
victim worthy of international protection. A regime that spreads terror,
violence and fear throughout the Middle East will enjoy support and
sympathy, while the country that is supposed to be the leader of the
free world will find itself isolated and on the defensive. And bragging
rights for this brilliant maneuver will rightfully belong to our own
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
If
one is to believe the repeated and sustained leaks in recent days from
the White House, Trump intends to refrain from issuing the quarterly
certification that Iran is complying with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action. Trump cannot actually claim that Iran is violating the
nuclear deal, because it isn’t, but he plans to assert that Tehran is
violating the ‘spirit’ of the agreement and that the continued existence
of the deal is not in America’s interests. The certification process
isn’t actually part of the nuclear deal, but an internal step mandated
by Congress, but it could set off a chain reaction that most of the
world, with the exception of Trump, Netanyahu and parts of the American
right wing, is afraid will end badly.
Such a move by Trump will make him a local hero in Israel, some Arab capitals
and among U.S. hawks who have never reconciled with the deal reached by
Barack Obama in 2015, but that will probably be the extent of its
achievements. Trump intimated over the weekend that we are now in “the
calm before the storm” but, like Hurricane Nate that is now homing in on
it, the storm is likely to create more havoc in the U.S. than in Iran. A
rejection of the deal, even one that isn’t legally binding, will
exacerbate tensions with western European allies, who are still trying
to persuade Trump to change course. It will give Moscow and Beijing
another opportunity to portray Trump as a loose cannon who cannot be
trusted. If will cast the United States as a rogue country that does not
abide by the agreements it signs. It will paint Trump as a serial
pyromaniac who is hell bent on lighting new fires as he struggles to
contain his previous flare-ups, most notably with North Korea.
It’s
feasible that formally, nothing will actually happen. Trump’s
decertification of the Iran deal opens a 60 day window during which the
Senate can decide to reimpose sanctions that were suspected because the
JCPOA. If and when such a decision will be made, the U.S. will be deemed
to have unilaterally abandoned the nuclear accord, but the chances for
this happening are slim, despite the GOP majority in the Senate. Until
that end result is reached, however, a harsh confrontation between the
deal’s supporters and opponents could develop, in which Israel would
find itself on the losing side, as it was in 2015. The Jewish community,
whose fear of Iran is only eclipsed by its loathing for Trump, will be
torn apart once again. And if the decertification actually leads to new
sanctions that derail the deal and spark conflict or even war between
the U.S. and Tehran, Israel will be accused of pushing America too far,
as it was during George W. Bush’s Iraq war. This time, however, the
allegations will be harder to refute.
Netanyahu
is said to have convinced Trump and other American hawks that
Washington can and should present Tehran with an ultimatum to “nix it or
fix it”. Most of the international community, including American
defense officials, believe that the threat is empty, because Tehran
would never agree to amend the nuclear deal, especially when most of the
world is standing behind it. Most of the world also believes that the
continued implementation of the nuclear deal, whatever its deficiencies,
dangers and limitations, is infinitely preferable to its revocation. A
statement by Trump that Tehran is not living up to its side of the deal,
despite assertions to the contrary by the International Atomic Energy
Agency, the co-signatories to the deal and most of the intelligence
services in the world, is seen in world capitals as reckless to the
point of insanity.
There
is no doubt that Iran is supplying numerous justifications for an
American president to rally an international coalition that would
pressure Tehran to curtail its ballistic missile program, its support
for terror and its drive to control the Middle East.
A statement by Trump that Iran is not complying with the nuclear deal
would make such an effort that much harder. It creates conflict within
the international community rather than with Iran. Based on prior
experience with Trump, it won’t be perceived as a fact-based and
principled position against Tehran’s designs, but rather as an
egotistical and impulsive attempt to keep campaign promises, erase
Obama’s legacy and wipe out his premier foreign policy achievement. In
this context, Netanyahu could be accused cynically exploiting Trump’s
weaknesses in order to achieve the victory that was denied him during
his ill advised 2015 campaign against Obama.
A
sounder and more popular president than Trump might have been able to
muster the international and domestic support necessary to pressure
Iran, but Trump is spoiling for this fight at a time when his standing
is at one of its lowest points ever. Not only does the world view him as
an unguided missile, but a new Associated Press poll published on
Saturday shows that his domestic support has reached rock bottom, with
an approval rating of only 32%, with many Republicans now voicing their
dissatisfaction as well. Trump seemed subdued and helpless after the
massacre in Las Vegas and maliciously disinclined to help Puerto Rico
recover from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria. Never one to
rest on his thorns, however, Trump made sure to alienate American women
over the weekend as well, by exempting employers from covering health
insurance meant to offset the cost of buying contraceptives.
Trump
has also lost control of the GOP Senate, the body that can reimpose
sanctions suspended by the JCPOA and thus violate it. Senior senators
such as John McCain and Bob Corker have already made clear that they no
longer trust Trump’s judgment and won’t be bound by his policies. Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose relations with Trump are tense
as well, has signaled his reluctance to catch the hot potato thrown out
by Trump and his unwillingness to make the Senate responsible for the
cancellation of the deal and the mayhem that might ensue from such a
move. Even cabinet secretaries who were personally appointed by Trump
are now voicing their reservations in public, from Secretary of Defense
James Mattis, who says the U.S. should adhere to the nuclear deal, to
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who has refrained from denying he called Trump a “moron.”
Many
Israelis are praying that there is a method to Trump’s madness. The
news website Axios reported this week that Trump himself instructed U.S.
officials to describe him as a “crazy guy” in the context of trade
talks with South Korea. It’s a well-known negotiation tactic favored by
Richard Nixon, for example, and used extensively by Henry Kissinger in
the 1970s to persuade the North Vietnamese to end the War in Vietnam.
Although they signed the deal, the North Vietnamese waited for the last
American soldier to leave their country before reneging on it and
conquering the country’s south. The lesson drawn should have been that a
president whose popularity is collapsing and who is facing formidable
legal complications, as Nixon did in Watergate and Trump could soon face
with Russiagate, cannot afford to use the Madman gambit. With Trump
there’s an added complication, because it’s not completely clear whether
describing him as a “crazy guy” is just a ploy or an actual description
of reality.
Commenti
Posta un commento