The U.S. is vulnerable to Iranian attacks because Iran’s leaders have reason to believe President Trump is uncertain.
It’s not simply a problem of Trump’s making. Advancing policy positions on Iran that are, at least, perceptively harsher than Trump’s own position, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton have created uncertainty in U.S. policy.
Of course, some uncertainty is positive in allowing the U.S. to manipulate actors to our interest. But not this much uncertainty. In leading global opinion toward the expectation that the U.S. was preparing for conflict with Iran (even though that expectation is wrong), Trump’s officials have forced the president to pare back America’s position. Hence Trump’s stated openness last week to negotiate with Iran on the specific issue of its nuclear program.
The problem here is that even as he is right to pare back from Pompeo’s unrealistic demands, Trump must be cautious to avoid Iranian perceptions of his peaceability. Because while Trump’s outreach does foster marginal rapprochement with the more-moderate Iranian faction under President Hassan Rouhani and foreign minister Javad Zarif, it also induces the Iranian hardliners to believe they can escalate against American interests. The risk is that the hardliners will see Trump’s paring back not as a reflection of his different views to Pompeo and Bolton, but rather one of fear that Iran may lash out.
As shown by recent attacks on cargo ships just east of the Strait of Hormuz and on Saudi oil pipelines, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and its proxies are escalating. The Guard is a clever but aggressive political operator. But the group has standing and escalating interest in forcing the reduction of U.S. sanctions targeting Iran. After all, those sanctions have an outsize negative influence on the Guard’s own money flows. And if the Guard believes it can escalate in a manner that forces President Trump to reduce the sanctions pressure in return for a respite of threats, the organization will take that risk.
Trump can prevent that undesired escalation.
To do so he must balance U.S. deterrent threats to the Revolutionary Guard alongside outreach to the more moderate Iranian faction. Only that will prevent the Guard’s hostility from escalating, and prevent the force from subsuming the more moderate faction to the idea that Trump is disinterested in meaningful diplomacy. It’s all about balance.
Trump should maintain U.S. sanctions pressure and make explicit that Iranian aggression will meet an outsize military response. But he should also invite Rouhani to the White House to get a new nuclear deal on the books.
