White House war of words strengthens the rise of Iranian hard-line factions
IN AMERICA’S fevered political landscape, supporters of President Donald Trump often cast criticism of him as a symptom of a condition – “Trump derangement syndrome”. Trump’s opponents are so possessed by their contempt for him, the diagnosis goes, that they embrace positions and pursue policy goals they would never consider in any other context.
Supposed examples of this include the new-found Russophobia among some American liberals and the knee-jerk rejection to Trump’s overtures to North Korea – signs of partisan tribalism supposedly displacing political logic.
However, Trump and his lieutenants are guilty of their own derangement syndromes, most conspicuously when it comes to Iran.
Even as Trump has gone out of his way to cosy up to an autocrat in Moscow, embraced human-rights-abusing Arab monarchs and celebrated his friendliness with the world’s most isolated dictator, he sees in Tehran an implacable, irreconcilable enemy.
Trump issued a dramatic tweet, addressing Iranian president Hassan Rouhani all in capitals: “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.”
The tweet received a bullish reply from Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, the following day.
Javad Zarif tweeted: “COLOR US UNIMPRESSED: The world heard even harsher bluster a few months ago. And Iranians have heard them – albeit more civilized ones – for 40 yrs. We’ve been around for millennia & seen fall of empires, incl our own, which lasted more than the life of some countries. BE CAUTIOUS!”
Trump’s ire was apparently sparked by comments Rouhani made on Sunday in a meeting with Iranian diplomats. “America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars,” Rouhani said, delivering a pointed warning to the Trump
administration not to engage in efforts to overthrow the Iranian regime.
Rouhani seemed to be offering a rebuttal to the speech American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered that day. During that address, Pompeo launched a lengthy attack on Iran’s political leadership, arguing the theocratic regime was a corrupt “kleptocracy” and a “mafia”.
POMPEO’S remarks were the latest broadside in a wider diplomatic offensive against Iran. Since reneging on its end of the nuclear deal with Tehran, the White House is pushing for renewed and tougher sanctions on Iran and has cheered all glimmers of protest within the country. Trump has also consistently cast Iran as a global menace, parroting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s talking points about the country’s corrosive influence in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Rouhani’s position is growing weaker. Many Iranians now pin the country’s slumping economy on the president, angry that the nuclear deal has not delivered the economic benefits he promised. The hard-line forces Rouhani once manoeuvred against are ascendant.
The Trump administration “has strengthened the hand of hard-line Iranian factions, in the clerical and judicial establishment as well as in the Revolutionary Guards, who always said it was a mistake to strike a deal with the US,” reported Najmeh Bozorgmehr of the ‘Financial Times’.
“These groups, who believe their position has been vindicated, have been able to use the threats from Mr Trump and others to reassert their authority, adding to pressure on Mr Rouhani, whose credibility has been badly damaged by his failure to keep the deal and new economic curbs from Washington.”
That could provoke a backlash from the regime, via its proxy forces in various corners of the Middle East.
“Western countries should be aware that if they put too much pressure on Iran, it could unleash radical Shia forces and trigger a new wave of Islamic radicalism,” added Hossein Marashi, a reformist politician in Tehran.
That may be exactly what Washington’s own hard-liners want. Trump’s lieutenants are positioning themselves as champions of revolutionary change within Iran – or for armed conflict with an increasingly cornered adversary.
But the Trump administration’s grandstanding on this front is unlikely to galvanise popular discontent within Iran.
“The more the US threatens Iran, and the more ordinary Iranians have to deal with economic hardships,” argued Ali Vaez of the international Crisis Group, “the less motivation (Iranians) may have for pursuing any kind of radical change.”