Are we at the cusp of all out war? Has Trump nicely and truly brought us to the precipice of global destruction? How did we come to this and what should we do?
In the annals of Middle East politics, July 2015 was a watershed moment. This is when Iran and a six nation negotiating group signed an agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This came about after more than a decade long impasse and ended years of deadlock over Tehran’s nuclear programme. It wasn’t easy going! Even this deal took almost two years of intensive talks, arm twisting, haggling and re-aligning. At the heart of it, the JCPOA is a straightforward deal. Iran restricts its nuclear programme in return for removal of relevant sanctions and connection with global markets.
Fast forward four years and the region is again a tinderbox ready to explode! How did that happen? Consider.
It wouldn’t be amiss to say that the JCPOA was President Barrack Obama’s greatest foreign policy achievement. Granted that it may not be the best deal in the eyes of many a commentator, but it was a very efficient deal that achieved the US policy objectives in Iran halting Tehran’s nuclear programme but avoiding regime change to influence regional balance of power. President Trump, in contrast, has always been dead set against this agreement, to an extent that one of his election manifestos was to dismantle it. Pulling out of the JCPOA in May 2018 may be the worst foreign policy decision that he makes during his term in office. This puts Obama and Trump on opposite side of history and history will probably judge Trump harshly! This is not only because of reneging on the JCPOA but mostly because Trump hasn’t gone the whole hog and embraced the alternate policy option of regime change successfully.
Even during the Obama presidency, the hawks in the American establishment preferred a change in the regional balance of power. This made sense for them because of the logic that easing of sanctions will afford more Iranian prosperity which it can then use to further its aims in the region. The Obama administration believed otherwise; i.e. restrict Iran’s nuclear programme. Both were two opposite ends of the policy spectrum. One could disagree with the policy option but not with the underlying logic. Then came Trump!
He began with jingoistic rhetoric and started dismantling the Iran deal. Egged on by Israel, which provided so-called evidence of Iranians substantially cheating on the agreement, Trump wholeheartedly approached this with the aim of upsetting the balance of regional power. Nuclear proliferation may have been the last thing on his mind, if it ever was! However, he didn’t get to his policy objective and is now stuck half-way in between!
After withdrawing from JCPOA, the Trump administration tried separate sanctions against Iran and put even more menacing demands on the government in Tehran. While the stricter sanctions did hurt Iran economically, the Iranian response on the nuclear proliferation front was to breach the uranium enrichment cap set by the 2015 deal. On the battle front, Iran has increased asymmetric attacks which has resulted in drones being shot down and tankers being attacked. The US has also responded with increased presence in the Strait of Hormuz. The UK seized an Iranian oil tanker off the coast of Gibraltar. A UAE based oil tanker has gone missing recently after it stopped in Iranian waters and switched off its transponder, raising concerns that it might have been seized by Iran. Hence, the region is on a knife edge because it is indeed a tinderbox ready to explode!
And for what? For a Trump administration whose bluff has been called! It expected the new arm twisting to pay dividends in form of a re-alignment in the balance of power in the region. That didn’t happen. After the drone shooting incident, it threatened retaliatory strikes against Iran. That didn’t happen. And what is truly bonkers? Trump has now said to Iran, “You can’t have nuclear weapons. And other than that, we can sit down and make a deal”! If that was the whole objective which is aligned to the Obama administration by the way then Trump should never have withdrawn from the JCPOA! Staying in the JCPOA along with the five other nations may have yielded some dividends by now but instead the world finds itself on the verge of catastrophic and life altering events!
The need of the hour is two fold. One, US must realise the error of its ways and accept the fact that it has spectacularly failed to achieve its foreign policy objectives with regards to Iran. Regional alignment is not happening, and nuclear proliferation is back on the table. Two, other signatories to the deal and especially UK must not pander to the Trump presidency and ensure that Iran is not boxed into a corner out of which the only escape is a further escalation of hostilities.
This is even more crucial now keeping in mind the Tory party leadership election in the UK and the fact that either Jeremy Hunt or Boris Johnson will win and become the next British Prime Minister. Both of them have not covered themselves in glory by cravenly following the Trump administration. It is high time that this attitude changed! Not only for the sake of the UK but also for the sake of the world!
