The “Terrorism” Word – Iran vs the United States

One year ago, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the United Nations-sponsored six-country Iran nuclear containment accord claiming, despite his own military’s assurances to the contrary, that the treaty was a “disastrous one-sided deal” that failed to end Iran’s “malign activity.”  Almost immediately thereafter, the United States amped up its economic pressures on Iran, restoring and then increasing economic sanctions aimed at disabling Iran’s financial sector and its relations with the rest of the world and punishing companies and nations who continued to trade with Iran.

Even as the remaining signatory nations vowed to hold to the terms of the treaty, pragmatism forced compliance with most American demands. The U.S., securing pledges from anti-Shiite/Iran Sunni oil-producing countries (like Saudi Arabia) to keep oil supplies abundant, pressed harder to stop anyone from buying Iranian oil. Expect more sanctions.

 Seemingly taking his foreign policy directives from Israeli Prime Minister’s vitriolic anti-Iranian speeches – acknowledging that Iran is an existential threat to Israel – Trump took one giant unnecessary “symbolic” step. In April, “Trump… flouted warnings from Pentagon officials in naming Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who controls the elite military force, called the designation a ‘vicious move’ and a ‘mistake.’” Politico.com, May 5^th. We gained absolutely nothing by adding that label. Almost immediately, Iran responded labeling all U.S. military forces in the Middle East as “terrorists” as well. Those U.S. forces are now open game to a whole assembly of additional bad actors.

With little more than a unilateral escalation of economic slaps and verbal escalation, the United States took another big swat at the wasps’ nest: “The U.S. military is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group [pictured above] and a bomber task force to the Central Command region in the Middle East to send a "clear and unmistakable message" to Iran, national security adviser John Bolton said in a statement Sunday [5/5].

“The action, confirmed by the Defense Department, comes ‘in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings,’ Bolton said, and is intended to convey ‘to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.’

“Bolton added: ‘The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces.’” Politico.com. Iran has deployed its forces and surrogates in regional conflict, through its regular forces in support of Syria, Hezbollah in various nations in the region, the Houthis in Yemen, and the United States, for itself and on behalf of Israel, has justifiably argued to contain this regional menace, one we have made so much stronger by toppling a Sunni despot in Iraq to convert that nation into a Shiite-sympathizer with Iran.

The confrontation between the United States seems to be escalating, perhaps risking a shooting war, rather unnecessarily. Why now? Why use words that provoke? Why resort to a policy of escalating hostilities, refusing to engage in diplomacy, that did not produce a single positive step between the countries between 1979 until the May 2015 six-party accord?

“Iran’s president said for the first time Wednesday [5/8] that his government will stop complying with parts of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal after the White House sent a Navy carrier task force to the region and tightened a chokehold on the country’s oil exports.

“Several hours after the Iranian announcement, the White House said that it was imposing additional economic sanctions to target Iran’s iron, steel, aluminum and copper industries, increasing pressure on the already battered economy.

“The dueling moves and rising tension came one year after President Trump withdrew from the landmark nuclear disarmament pact negotiated by the Obama administration… ‘We call on the regime to abandon its nuclear ambitions, change its destructive behavior, respect the rights of its people and return in good faith to the negotiating table,’ Trump said Wednesday [5/8] in a White House statement.

“Earlier, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on national TV that Iran would stockpile surplus enriched uranium, rather than send it abroad, and would consider restarting production of bomb-grade uranium, a far more serious threat.

 “Although Rouhani said Iran’s moves did not violate the 2015 accord , his announcement increased pressure on other signatories — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — to do more to save the agreement or watch it collapse…

“Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Assn., a research group in Washington that favored the deal, said Tehran’s response was worrisome but predictable… ‘The logical consequence of Trump’s approach to punishing Iran despite its compliance ... is that Iranians do not see the value of that compliance,’ Kimball said in an interview.” Los Angeles Times, May 9^th.

Bolton always sounds smart, but his policies and positions are almost always extreme and untenable, usually provoking the opposite result from what is intended. Venezuela’s Maduro didn’t exactly fall from power as predicted. Fail. North Korea just fired two new test missiles and cancelled the joint US/North Korean effort to locate U.S. bodies from the Korean War. It get worse: “The U.S. said Thursday [5/9] that it has seized a North Korean cargo ship that was used to violate international sanctions, a first-of-its kind enforcement action that comes amid a tense moment in relations between the two countries.” Associated Press, May 9^th.  Fail. And his boss, Donald Trump, has become the international clown prince of diplomacy. You can bet that Bolton gets the gate soon. When does repeating the same behavior, consistently with a bad result, but expecting a different result considered sane policy? Our decades of confronting Iran have not done a thing for us. Iran’s next step? Stockpile the stuff that fuels nuclear weapons. Fail. Tariff-loving Trump’s finalizing a trade agreement with the People’s Republic of China to save American consumers billions of dollars of price increases and preserve hundreds of thousands of related U.S. jobs. Fail.   Are you tired of so much winning and more winning? Fail.

                  I’m Peter Dekom, and bully-tactics on a global stage almost always generate particularly nasty unintended consequences.