Reason is a concept that does not exist in Trump Talk.
"What follows are major reasons why Trump is wrong if he thinks Iran will
accede to his demands that it renegotiate a nuclear agreement with the
United States to replace the JCPOA."
From my lofty perch in the Crow's Nest of the Good Ship Freedom, I see
Donald Trump and his Trumpsters looking for a fight. Reason will not
prevail. Either the American Empire will supply the arms to one of
Iran's neighboring states, or the Empire will directly attack Iran in
order to defend the Empire's many interests.
Reason tells the Working Class Americans that Iran is no threat to our
People. But once War is engaged, American youth will be sent into
action. This will be the payback for allowing Corporate Capitalism to
seize control of the government.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/4/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Three Reasons Why 'Fire and Fury' Won't Work With Iran
By Scott Ritter
Truthdig
The crew of the littoral combat ship USS Coronado performs a live-fire
demonstration of a Kongsberg missile off Southern California. (Naval
Warriors / Flickr Creative Commons)
On July 22, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addressed a crowd of
Iranian-Americans, giving voice to a new American policy on Iran that seeks
to undermine the legitimacy of the Iranian government. It would also
strangle Iran's economy through the reimposition of economic sanctions that
had been set aside when Iran and five other Western nations, including the
United States, came to an agreement in 2015 over Iran's nuclear program.
According to this agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or
JCPOA, Iran accepted sanctions on its nuclear program in exchange for the
lifting of economic sanctions. When President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA
in May, he promised to reimpose sanctions that had been approved by
Congress, including those targeting Iran's sale of oil. The goal of the
Trump administration, Pompeo told the crowd, was to "get [Iranian oil]
imports as close to zero as possible" by this November.
Pompeo's address did not go over well in Tehran. Addressing a gathering of
Iranian diplomats, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani asked, "Is it possible
that everyone in the region sells their oil and we stand idly by and watch?
Do not forget that we have maintained the security of this waterway [Strait
of Hormuz] throughout history. We have historically secured the route of
oil
transit. Do not forget it."
Approximately 18.5 million barrels of oil a day transit through the Strait
of Hormuz, a narrow channel of water separating Iran from Oman. The loss of
this oil to the global economy would be devastating. On July 5, Rouhani
commented on the American plan to shut down Iran's oil imports, saying,
"The
Americans say they want to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero. . It shows
they have not thought about its consequences." While Rouhani had remained
silent about what those consequences would be, Qasem Soleimani, the
commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, made it
clear that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz to all oil traffic.
"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, warning the
American
president not to "play with the lion's tail, this would only lead to
regret."
President Trump's response, delivered via Twitter the next day, caught the
attention of the world.
"
NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER
CONSEQUENCES
THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE
NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE &
DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!
On July 24, the Iranian Armed Forces chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Mohammad
Bagheri, responded to Trump's threats. "As the dominant power in the
Persian
Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, [Iran] has been the guarantor of the
security
of shipping and the global economy in this vital waterway and has the
strength to take action against any scheme in this region," Bagheri said.
"As our president correctly pointed out, the enemies, particularly America,
whose centers of interest are within reach of the visible and hidden
defense
forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, should not play with the lion's
tail," the Iranian general said, "because they will receive a strong,
unimaginable and regrettable response of great magnitude in the region and
the world."
That same day, President Trump addressed a gathering of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, seemingly a perfect venue for offering a bellicose response
to
the Iranian threats of action. Instead, the president offered up a fig leaf
of sorts. "We'll see what happens," Trump said, "but we're ready to make a
real deal, not the deal that was done by the previous administration, which
was a disaster."
The seesawing rhetorical game of threat and counterthreat being played by
Trump seems reminiscent of a similar approach taken late last year and
early
this year with North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Last August, responding to North Korean threats to test missiles capable of
reaching the United States, Trump had declared that North Korea "best not
make any more threats to the United States," saying that if North Korea
disregarded him, "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has
never seen." Trump later went on to famously belittle North Korea's leader,
Kim Jong Un, as "little rocket man," while Kim in turn responded by calling
Trump a "dotard" and a "warmonger" whose true nature was that of a
"destroyer of the world peace and stability."
In June, Trump and Kim held a summit in Singapore, where they discussed the
denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
Many observers believe that Trump is reaching back to his North Korean
playbook in engaging in the current hostile exchange with Iran. Iran,
however, is not North Korea.
What follows are major reasons why Trump is wrong if he thinks Iran will
accede to his demands that it renegotiate a nuclear agreement with the
United States to replace the JCPOA.
Reason One: Iran Isn't Breaking the Law
North Korea was in open violation of numerous U.N. Security Council
resolutions regarding its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and there
was (and is) widespread concurrence that North Korea's nuclear weapons
program posed a clear and present threat to international peace and
security. While Trump's hostile rhetoric toward Kim Jong Un represented
American policy only, he was backed up by a global consensus that the
threat
from North Korea's nuclear arsenal was no longer acceptable. North Korea
was
on the wrong side of the law, and it knew it.
Iran, on the other hand, had successfully negotiated a nuclear agreement
with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council,
Germany and the European Union. Its nuclear program today operates in total
conformity with the terms of that agreement. The Security Council had
passed
a resolution undoing the totality of the economic sanctions imposed on Iran
because of its nuclear program. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA because of
American domestic politics, not because Iran threatened international peace
and security. As the United States moves to reimpose sanctions on Iran, one
is struck by the number of nations rushing to its side to join in this
endeavor: zero.
Simply put, there is no compelling narrative than can be crafted that has
Iran walking away from the JCPOA.
Reason Two: Iran Doesn't Have to Win to Win
A war between the United States and North Korea, while potentially
devastating for the entire region, had only one sure outcome-total American
victory (at a huge cost), and the absolute destruction of the North Korean
regime. In short, if Kim Jong Un opted for war with the United States, he
would be committing suicide-and taking millions of others down with him.
Kim
Jong Un is anything but suicidal. He built his arsenal of nuclear weapons
for deterrence purposes, not to engage in a self-destructive acquisition of
technology. North Korea's ultimate goal has been to break free of the
international isolation it has been subjected to; nuclear weapons were a
way
to secure that outcome. The Singapore Summit occurred because of North
Korean initiatives-the Olympic outreach, the meetings with South Korean
leaders, and so on. Kim Jong Un was not compelled to go to Singapore-a
meeting with an American president was always his ultimate objective.
The Iranian government does not trust the United States and has no desire
to
engage in diplomatic relations with the United States. This does not mean
that the two nations cannot peacefully coexist-they can, and Iran desires
as
much. But throwing the possibility of a grand bargain with the United
States
on the table in exchange for Iran giving up its nuclear program is sheer
fantasy. As such, any effort to compel Iran into diplomatic engagement by
threatening it with war is doomed to fail. Iran learned the lessons of
Hezbollah's ongoing conflict with Israel, and in particular that of the
2006
war, all too well. To win the war, Hezbollah did not need to defeat Israel;
it had only to make sure Israel did not defeat it. This is an ambition Iran
readily aspires to-it can shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cripple the
global
economy and ride out any American military response. In the end, the United
States will succumb to international pressure and search for a negotiated
settlement, and Iran will emerge victorious simply because it survived.
Iran
would accept this outcome rather than surrender its hard-won diplomatic
achievement regarding the JCPOA.
Reason Three: Religious Democracy
North Korea is an absolute dictatorship-Kim Jong Un need only gain the
concurrence of his inner circle to move forward on ground-changing policy,
such as improving relations with the United States. Even then, any voices
of
dissent can be-and indeed, have been-summarily silenced. Kim Jong Un has a
constituency of one when it comes to getting his policies approved:
himself.
Iran is a far more complex problem when it comes to making policy-an
Islamic
republic governed by a democratically elected executive and legislature
whose decisions are subject to review by a theocracy that itself is
governed
by a constitution and held accountable, via elections, to the will of the
people. While Iranian democracy has been openly mocked in the United States
as a sham, the fact is that democratic processes have shaped the Islamic
Republic of Iran since its founding. The current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, has spoken of Iran as being a "religious democracy," where
the
people's participation in the government, expressed through the vehicle of
elections, is indicative of the nation's health (indeed, Iran's 73.3
percent
turnout in the presidential election of 2017, in which Hassan Rouhani won
re-election, dwarfs the paltry 55.7 percent turnout in the U.S.
presidential
election of 2016 that put Donald Trump in office).
The JCPOA that was negotiated between Iran and the West was more than
simply
an expression of political will by the Iranian leadership-it was an
expression of the will of the Iranian people, given voice through countless
parliamentary debates and legitimized through repeated elections where the
issue of Iran's nuclear program factored in the balloting. The Iranian
people would support its government refusing to bend a knee in the face of
American threats; they would not support a government that surrendered
their
hard-won gains on the nuclear front, which the Iranian people suffered
greatly to achieve.
Donald Trump lives in a transactional universe where everything can be
dealt
away. While this approach might work with New York City real estate and may
even have limited application in international affairs, it fails where
issues derived from intangible principles-something that cannot be
monetized-are at stake. In Trump's world, one can try to bribe North Korea
with the promise of economic largesse or threaten NATO's viability by
placing a dollar value on continued membership. While the ulterior motives
of North Korea agreeing-in principle, if not reality-to denuclearize, and
NATO to increase its defense spending to 2 percent GDP per member, are
probably far more complex than the zero-sum thinking that Trump's
transactional diplomacy suggests, the results are the same. But there can
be
no transactional diplomacy when the other side refuses to name a price, and
Iran has made it clear that there is no price it is willing to accept to
give up its nuclear program.
The danger here is that Trump doesn't realize he is playing a losing hand.
His bluff will be called by Iran (indeed, based upon Rouhani's words, it
has
been called), but Trump will continue to throw chips into the pot until
compelled to either reverse course and rejoin the JCPOA (unlikely), or
force
the issue and watch the United States enter a war with Iran it will not
lose-but cannot win.
