The Mask Is Off: Trump Is Seeking War with Iran

Donald Trump

by Trita Parsi

Something extraordinary has happened in Washington. President Donald Trump has made it clear, in no uncertain terms and with no effort to disguise his duplicity, that he will claim that Tehran is cheating on the nuclear deal by October—the facts be damned. In short, the fix is in. Trump will refuse to accept that Iran is in compliance and thereby set the stage for a military confrontation. His advisors have even been kind enough to explain how they will go about this. Rarely has a sinister plan to destroy an arms control agreement and pave the way for war been so openly telegraphed.

The unmasking of Trump’s plans to sabotage the nuclear deal began two weeks ago when he reluctantly had to certify that Iran indeed was in compliance. Both the US intelligence as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency had confirmed Tehran’s fair play. But Trump threw a tantrum in the Oval Office and berated his national security team for not having found a way to claim Iran was cheating. According to Foreign Policy, the adults in the room—Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster—eventually calmed Trump down but only on the condition that they double down on finding a way for the president to blow up the deal by October.

Prior to the revelation of Trump’s Iran certification meltdown, most analysts and diplomats believed that Trump’s rhetoric on Iran was just that—empty talk. His bark was worse than his bite, as demonstrated when he certified Iran’s compliance back in April and when he renewed sanctions waivers in May. The distance between his rhetoric and actual policy was tangible. Rhetorically, Trump officials described Iran as the root of all problems in the Middle East and as the greatest state sponsor of terror. Trump even suggested he might quit the deal.

In action, however, President Trump continued to waive sanctions and admitted that Iran was adhering to the deal. As a result, many concluded that Trump would continue to fulfill the obligations of the deal while sticking to his harsh rhetoric in order to appease domestic opponents of the nuclear deal—as well as Trump’s allies in Saudi Arabia and Israel.

But now, assessments are changing. The tangible danger of Trump’s malice on the Iran deal—as well as the danger of the advice of the “adults in the room”—became further clarified this week as tidbits of the reality TV star’s plans began to leak.

How to Wreck a Deal

Recognizing that refusing to certify Iran would isolate the United States, Trump’s advisors gave him another plan. Use the spot-inspections mechanism of the nuclear deal, they suggested, to demand access to a whole set of military sites in Iran. Once Iran balks—which it will since the mechanism is only supposed to be used if tangible evidence exists that those sites are being used for illicit nuclear activities—Trump can claim that Iran is in violation, blowing up the nuclear deal while shifting the blame to Tehran.

Thus, the advice of the adults in the room—those who we are supposed to restrain Trump—was not to keep the highly successful nuclear deal that has taken both an Iranian bomb and war with Iran off the table. Rather, they recommended killing it in a manner that would conceal Trump’s malice and shift the cost to Iran.

According to The New York Times, the groundwork for this strategy has already been laid. Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Corker (R-TN) calls this strategy “radical enforcement” of the deal. “If they don’t let us in,” Corker told The Washington Post, “boom.” Then he added: “You want the breakup of this deal to be about Iran. You don’t want it to be about the U.S., because we want our allies with us.”

This is a charade, a rerun of the machinations that resulted in the Iraq war. It doesn’t matter what Iran does or doesn’t do. If it were up to Trump, he’d never have accepted that Iran was in compliance in the first place. He admitted as much to the Wall Street Journal. “If it was up to me, I would have had them [the Iranians] non-compliant 180 days ago.”

Sounding supremely confident of the “radical implementation” strategy, Trump added that “I think they’ll be noncompliant [in October].” In so doing, he further confirmed doubts that the process is about determining whether Iran is in compliance or not. The administration is committed to finding a way to claim Iran has violated the accord, regardless of the facts—just as George W. Bush did with Iraq.

Potential for Backfire

But Trump’s confidence may be misplaced on two levels. First, abusing the inspection mechanisms of the deal may prove harder than Trump has been led to believe. The inspections are the cornerstone of the deal, and Iran’s ability to cheat on the deal is essentially non-existent as long as the integrity and efficiency of the inspections remain in tact. But if Trump begins to abuse the mechanism to fabricate a conflict, he will end up undermining the inspections regime and actually enhance the ability of those in Iran who would like to pursue a covert nuclear program. Precisely because of the commitment of Europe and others to non-proliferation, they are likely to resist Trump’s efforts to tinker with the inspections.

Second, by revealing his hand, Trump has displayed his duplicity for all to see. That includes the American public, whose anti-war sentiments remain strong and are a key reason they supported the nuclear deal in the first place.

The American public knows the Iraq playbook quite well. Trump’s own supporters remain enraged by the disastrous war with Iraq. They know how they got played. It’s difficult to imagine why they would allow themselves to get played again by a president who has left little doubt about his intent to deceive.

Trita Parsi is the president of the National Iranian American Council and author of Losing an Enemy – Obama, Iran and the Triumph of Diplomacy.

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15 Comments

  1. Any and all wars are very easy to justify. I think Trump knows that the Deep State wants a permanent war and while many love the idea of a military confrontation with Russia which they believe will force Russia to back down and give up its sovereignty. But Iran Trump and those around him don’t believe the possibility of a miscalculation is worth it–the prefer to attack somebody and it looks like Iran would be a good choice. Our allies the Israelis and Saudis have been adamant about it for decades now. The Israelis are pursuing a “Greater Israel” policy and wish to create, also, a set of buffer states around them and Iran/Syria/Lebanon are the fly in the ointment. Trump, whatever he really believes, is facing a coup d’etat and the best way to permanently eliminate that threat is to go to war. I think this is a flawed calculation. The Deep State’s propaganda organs want, at minimum, war with Russia which they’ve spend months paving the way for and they may not choose to endorse war with Iran because Saint Obama made a deal with Iran and thus it must be perfect.

    Should be interesting–first, any war with Iran will fail and fail dramatically. It will involve a huge loss of life on all sides. The Iranian military has become far more able than it was a few decades ago and, unlike Iraq, there is no natural opposition to the current regime within Iran so any attempt at Occupation by the U.S. which will, as usual, feature an astonishing high degree of corruption as occurred during Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. So though it may save Trump’s political fortunes in the short run and the media could be brought round since any war always meets with universal approval as we move ever more rapidly into Orwellianism. But it is a gamble on Trump’s part.

  2. Although one expects that any independent state remains impotently non-nuclear or submits to being a vassal state of the US, it is now so obvious that it’s law makers with dual US – Israeli citizenship are confirming the USA is a vassal state of the Zionist Regime…

  3. It was reported yesterday that North Korea has test fired another ICBM. This one has a longer range and is estimated to have the capability of hitting the US East cost, including New York and Washington.
    Another report which figured in the us press was – ” The US has slapped additional sanctions against Iran”. These for test firing a much smaller missile.
    Now this is what I call brilliant foreign policy.

  4. I have maintained through many posts on this and other sites that the only purpose of making Trump president is to start a war with Iran. There’s no other conceivable purpose. If you look at the who’s who of Trump’s inner circle, you will find if full of hardcore zionests who wanted (and tried) Obama not to accept the deal and go the way of war. Obama resisted (even run away and hid when Netanyaho went over to lecture him). Now that they have their pawn in the saddle, it is inconceivable that they will be satisfied with anything less that a war and possibly complete oblitration of Iran if need be through nuclear attacks. If they fail to attack Iran (due to internal resistance), it could signal the begining of the end of Zionist’s complete control over the US.

  5. It is difficult for me to think US Generals along with the Israeli High Command, both of whom would be responsible for a war du jour which could easily escalate into further world destruction would court this or any other disaster. Doesn’t make financial sense for guys whose bottom line is money.

    Iran, for all the religious overtone, is a contemporary culture which like others in the Middle East is on the cusp of overcoming the raft of absurd strictures which deny over half their population actual freedom of expression. When that happens flowers will bloom throughout their world.

    Talk of any strike against Iran or any other nation including North Korea is a scenario which no reasonable person ever contemplates, and even with all his idiosyncrasies, Mr Trump is far too intelligent to blow up his own world.

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