Mere minutes after President Trump announced to the world on May 8 that the United States would no longer be participating in the Iran nuclear deal, Europeans, Iranians, Russians, and even many Americans were wondering what the administration’s Plan B would be. Trump’s decision was so spur-of-the-moment and so sudden that he didn’t appear to have much of a back-up plan other than reimposing nuclear-related sanctions on Tehran and hoping for the day when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, bankrupt and depressed, ordered his underlings to go back to the table.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s May 21 speech on Iran was supposed to put some meat on the bones of the policy. What we received instead was about 35 minutes of bluster wrapped in hopeless delusions.
Indeed, when Pompeo concluded his remarks, one could not help but get the impression that the White House is less interested in a grand bargain with Iran than a unquestioned waving of the white flag. And if the mullahs are not willing to sign an unconditional surrender like the Germans in Versailles, the Trump administration will enact what Pompeo described as “the strongest sanctions regime in history.” In Pompeo’s words, the “sting of sanctions will be painful if the regime does not change its course.”
Sounds tough and bold, right? It certainly does. A wholesale reform of Iran’s behavior, from the permanent evisceration of its uranium enrichment capability to the suspension of its support for terrorist groups and proxies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, would be a complete 180-degree turnaround from how Iran has acted over the last 39 years. You can’t get tougher and more ambitious than that.
Ambition, however, can shrivel up at the first sign of disappointment. And so it will be for the pressure strategy Pompeo outlined today.
To believe Tehran will consider, let alone implement, Washington’s 12 demands in exchange for economic and political incentives to be gifted at an undefined, later date is over and above naivete. It is so delusional that one wonders whether the White House is just using a faux diplomatic option to check a box before traveling on the road to more confrontation.
Don’t get me wrong: Iran is a big problem for the region. It has been pumping money into the coffers of terrorist groups for more than three decades and has been far more assertive since its Syrian proxy Bashar Assad was seriously challenged by Gulf and American-backed rebel forces fighting for his ouster. The Iranian government has also exhibited contempt for Americans, particularly dual nationals, some of whom are arrested and locked up as dangers to the state based on bogus espionage charges.
But none of this troubling behavior obscures the fact that the United States, as powerful as it is, should not throw all of its chips in the pressure basket or count on coercion alone to achieve its objective. To dismiss any dialogue, as Pompeo seemed to be communicating, is to handicap a critical tool in America’s toolbox: the very talented and committed foreign service officers Pompeo now leads at the State Department.
Too many commentators, analysts, and government officials revile dialogue with adversarial regimes as appeasement or exhibitions of weakness. Even President Ronald Reagan, the darling of the Republican Party, was castigated by hard-right conservatives as an aloof naif when he made the courageous decision of a statesman to negotiate the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. It turned out that Reagan was right and they were wrong.
Negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are almost unthinkable in the present environment. But there may come a time when circumstances change. When and if that time comes, let’s hope Trump takes a page out of Reagan’s playbook.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
