Trump tweet leaves Iran policy unclear
Tehran unlikely to bend to pressure
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s vituperative tweet against Iran late on Sunday showed his determination to use the same approach that he took to engineer a diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea. But Mr Trump’s top advisers are far more united in their hostility to engaging with Iran, and Iran is far less likely to bend to such pressure.
Mr Trump’s threat that Iran would “suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before”, delivered before midnight in all capital letters, succeeded in changing the subject after a week of bad headlines about his meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. But it only deepened questions about the long-term direction of Mr Trump’s Iran policy. While the White House on Monday did not rule out direct talks between the president and Iran’s leaders over its nuclear programme, Trump’s hawkish national security team has put the focus more on toppling the Iranian government.
A few hours before Mr Trump’s tweet, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed in a speech that the United States would work with the Iranian people to undermine their clerical leaders, whom he described as “hypocritical holy men”, guilty of looting their country to enrich themselves and finance Islamist terrorism around the world.
The White House scrambled to lend a veneer of coordination to Mr Trump’s outburst. Officials said it had come after consultations with the national security adviser, John R Bolton, and in response to statements by Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani. A senior administration official said it augured a “more aggressive, comprehensive approach” to Iran.
Other people who know Mr Trump said his decision to respond in such fiery terms was driven almost entirely by his search for a distraction from questions about Russia. Mr Rouhani’s words were hardly unusual, they noted: He warned the United States against the “mother of all wars” with Iran, but also opened the door to the “mother of all peace”.
There was nothing in Mr Trump’s tweet to suggest he is looking to talk anytime soon. But his words carried a distinct echo of his threat last summer to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, whom he said faced “fire, fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before”.
Eight months later, Mr Trump accepted Mr Kim’s invitation to meet, and after spending a few hours with him in Singapore, Mr Trump declared that he and Mr Kim had ended the nuclear crisis with North Korea. He has stuck to that assessment.
When Mr Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in May, he told aides and foreign leaders that his policy of maximum pressure had forced Mr Kim to the bargaining table, and that a similar policy of overwhelming pressure would enable the United States to extract a better deal from Iran.
He has even taken credit for what he says are changes in Iran’s behaviour in the region since he pulled out of the deal — an assertion that baffles Iran experts, who say there is no evidence of changes in how Iranian is operating.
Experts and former officials who have negotiated with Iran listed at least three reasons Mr Trump would find it difficult to replicate his North Korea breakthrough with Iran.
First, Iran’s leadership is more complex and multifaceted than the one-man state of North Korea, making it harder for Tehran to reverse course like Mr Kim did, and reach out to Mr Trump.
Second, there are well-financed, powerful constituencies at home and abroad — like the Israeli government and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Washington-based lobbying group — which will mobilise against any new diplomatic overture to Iran.
Third, Mr Trump’s unilateral decision to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal gives the Iranians little incentive to negotiate with the United States, especially since the other five signers — Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China — are still adhering to it.