Donald Trump doesn’t want war with Iran. But he’s backed himself into a corner
- The US president broke the Iran nuclear deal out of spite for Barack Obama and deference to Saudi Arabia, says former US deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage
- And now he’s left without a plan B
You can’t or shouldn’t view the US-Iranian relationship without viewing it in the context of the broader issues in the Middle East. Iran is involved in many of these issues. For example, Iraq, from Baghdad down south, is certainly largely influenced, if not enormously influenced, by Iran.
Asia fears ‘second cold war’ as Donald Trump pushes Iran into Chinese arms
In Yemen, we have a situation where the Houthis are supported by Iran. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, backed by the US, have opposed this.
Saudi Arabia itself is not without its problems as the young crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, is further consolidating his position in the kingdom. Notwithstanding the moving ahead with women’s rights and things of that nature, which I think is all to the good. But there are some forces in Saudi Arabia which don’t like that and how he came to power. This is a large country. This is a country that has, for whatever reason, a lot of influence with the president of the US.
In Syria, Iran was involved along with its Russian friends. But whether it’s Syria, Yemen, the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon or Iraq, I think many in Tehran would say they’re in the ascendancy. They are on the “winning side”. There are more Houthis supporting Iran today than there were two years ago. Lebanon, though it’s having very difficult economic times, there’s no question that Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah and his party are the political leadership.
If Xi can matchmake Trump and Korea’s Kim, why not Iran’s Rowhani too?
Finally, two years into the Trump administration, there’s no peace plan, even though we promised we would have one for the Palestinians and the Israelis. It is still not forthcoming. So when we look at the Strait of Hormuz, let’s also make sure we look at the Arabian side of the Gulf and see that there are a lot of difficulties there, some of which contribute to the problem we’re having right now.
DEAL-BREAKER
Clearly the US broke the JCPOA, which is ironic because President Trump bellows that we want no nuclear bombs. The JCPOA had the US do very little – we just had to lift sanctions. Iran had many difficult things to do to live up to their side of the bargain. Now, President Trump and his allies who are against JCPOA, they’ve been able to sell the tune that the deal actually advanced nuclear developments in Iran. This is not true.
Those who are supportive of JCPOA – as I am – often start our discussion saying we know it’s a flawed agreement but it’s better than no agreement. But diplomacy is not getting all your goals at the same time, or achieving all your goals at the same time.
We’re in the process right now of calling for a coalition in the Gulf. What it means is that the US and a few others, Britain, Korea, will probably be escorting our vessels. But I think other nations will escort their vessels for their own reasons, and not be part of this coalition. Our own secretary of defence said in Asia last week that he understood perfectly why countries in the region don’t want to be seen as taking one side or another.
The Iranian position is very easy to understand. As I understand it, having gone from time to time and talked to Iranians, their view is that if their oil can’t get out of the Strait of Hormuz, then why should people on the other side of the Gulf be able to get their oil out of the Strait of Hormuz? This makes pretty good sense. This is not to say that from the US point of view, we don’t have grievances with Iran – we do. We think that the hostility from the leadership of Iran is unrelenting against us and against Israel. This hostility does not help the atmosphere. We worry about the development of conventional arms. We worry about threats to shipping, and possible proliferation. We worry about the ability of Iranians to exploit fissures in the Arab world, and they do this quite effectively. We still have concerns about terrorism, and we are all worried about the mistreatment of American detainees in Iran.
WHERE TO FROM HERE?
Oil tanker attacks: did Iran’s ties with China just go up in smoke?
One thing that would help is if the US would be a little smarter in our language rather than calling out the nation of Iran. It’s troublesome. If you have a problem with an individual, name the individual. If you don’t like the leadership, if it’s Mr Rowhani, name him. But don’t blame the whole nation. You know, in the US, and this will come as a surprise to you, we have an estimated four to five million citizens of Iranian descent. You can’t cross the street in Los Angeles without running into an Iranian-American. And we’re richly benefiting from that.
The next thing that I think the US needs to do, and all of us need to do, is realise that a flawed JCPOA is certainly better than the worst case right now. For the last several weeks, we have been knocking each other’s drones down. There has been relative quiet. I think it’s a time for reflection, a time to try to figure out what’s next. You should never embark upon a path without having Plan B already in mind. If you don’t know where you want to go, all roads lead there! And that seems to be the position the US is in.
So what’s the end game? No one’s thought it through. There are some who say they want the end of the Iranian regime, like [National Security Adviser John R.] Bolton and others. There are others, like our president, that is not his aim. I am very critical of our president. But I do not think he wants to commit military force. I do not think he wants another war in the Middle East. I think he is leaning over backwards not to have it, but he’s gone down a path of certain ways and doesn’t know how to back away from it.
Asia faces a devil’s bargain over US sanctions on Iran’s oil
I think all of us have a responsibility here. Whether you’re Singaporean, US, Iranian, we all have an opportunity to make sure that we seize opportunities to make sure that this whole situation ends not with a bang, but rather with a whimper.
Richard L. Armitage is a former US deputy secretary of state. This is an edited excerpt of a speech he delivered in Singapore on August 13 at a conference organised by the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute