Deft diplomacy needed on Iran
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump may be claiming early kudos for a remarkable de-escalation of tensions on the Korean Peninsula, where the hermetic North is offering to end its nuclear armament programme, but in the Middle East a fresh standoff is looming that risks enveloping a wider array of political notables.
In this fraught new power surge, Iran and Trump are firing broadsides over the future of a nuclear agreement clinched during the presidency of Barack Obama.
The deal has always stuck in Trump’s craw, like most things associated with his predecessor. Still, this occasion calls for deft diplomacy, such is the tinderbox in the region.
Name-calling – a la the now infamous Rocket Man jibe used to describe North Korea’s Kim Jong-un – is unlikely to yield results.
Of course, in this volatile mix is Israel, US ally and arch foe of Iran.
All three have their toes thoroughly dipped in the Syrian war, raising hostilities ahead of a May 12 decision on the nuclear deal.
Israel wants the US to abandon the pact, which, in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions, limited the scope of Iran’s nuclear programme for benign purposes. Both allies believe Iran has been chasing weaponisation clandestinely.
It gets complex. EU partners like France and UK, as well as Russia, are calling for all parties to salvage the deal. The lay of the land suggests Trump will have to be more artful in his diplomacy.
While he naturally looks to chalk up a personal score in the ongoing Korean detente, some reports have questioned whether Jong-un was left with little choice but to pursue peace after his country’s main nuclear test site was apparently obliterated in a landslide, according to satellite analysis by China.
Without anywhere to explode his stockpile of nuclear warheads, it stands to reason that Jong-un would swap a reactor full of enrichment rods for a flock of white doves.
Maybe in time we will come to learn how far the US influenced the latest efforts to unify the Koreas. For now, Iran, Israel and the Middle East are a whole new ballgame for Trump.
He may well have done his bit, no matter how obliquely, to put out one nuclear fire, but another with many more bit players and festering agendas threatens to ignite at any moment.