When pressed, Trump just repeats his mantra that it’s all about keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but everything he’s done makes that more, not less, likely. One year ago, he said Iran’s “nuclear potential” had been “completely and totally obliterated.” Then he threatened to “bomb them back to the Stone Age.” Now he says he’s ready to “open up the Gates of Hell,” but none of this posturing has had the desired effect on the Iranians. Trump uses the language of Reality TV, but he doesn’t follow it up with realism.
He continues to be entertaining to his Base in the US, but his aggressive unilateralism act doesn’t travel well, and he’s losing his audience.
Most of the national security apparatus in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps believes that Iran has to control the Strait of Hormuz and won’t bend on this, no matter how many Iranian civilians are killed. Trump is again threatening to destroy bridges and power plants in Tehran. If the US hits these civilian infrastructure targets, including desalinization plants, it will unleash a massive humanitarian crisis across the region, but there is no indication this would change the minds of the IRGC hardliners. They think they can still win.
Meanwhile, Trump is making a deal with Saudi Arabia to help them develop nuclear power capability, with no indication that safeguards will be put in place to keep the Saudis from enriching and reprocessing uranium to weapons-grade levels. The Saudis are telling Trump that they won’t build a nuclear bomb unless Iran does, and he apparently believes them. His personal business deals in Saudi Arabia, amounting to at least $26 million in the last year alone, may have some bearing on Trump’s gullibility in this matter.
The path to an agreement with Iran requires an actual ceasefire, a durable reopening of the Strait, allowing Iran access to ports, and investment by partners in the region to rebuild the country. But even if all that is done, we still won’t get to the place that we were under Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015.
Current polls show that 70% of Americans disapprove of the way Trump is handling the war in Iran. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Israel now has “no interest” in joining the US war in Iran. “The current situation is the best for us,” Smotrich concluded.