Did Donald Trump Elevate Iran into a World Power?

 

 Russia    China     Iran    North Korea

 and the “Great Enabler”

“No, I would not protect you…In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.” 

Donald Trump, Sunday, February 11th on honoring NATO mutual defense treaty obligations.

“The Iran Deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.” 

 Then President Trump in May of 2018, just before withdrawing the US from the nuclear enrichment limitation treaty with Iran.

In 2015, the UN-backed agreement (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action - JCPOA), signed by Iran, on the one hand, and the United States (during the Obama administration), Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China and the European Union, on the other, effectively limited Iran’s nuclear enrichment program (a precursor to developing nuclear weapons) in exchange for a lifting of billions of dollars of Western sanctions. Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program and open its facilities to more extensive international inspections.

The JCPOA was opposed by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, a posture soon adopted by newly elected Donald Trump. Trump pledged to cancel this US’ JCPOA participation, reimpose sanctions, that HE would bring Iran to its knees, and HE would extract a much broader, wide-ranging agreement in which Iran would not only dismantle its nuclear program further but reduce its support for its surrogates throughout the Middle East and beyond. In May of 2018, despite assurances from his own senior military and intelligence advisors that the JCPOA was effective in halting Iran’s weapons grade nuclear enrichment program, Trump terminated US involvement and reimposed elevated sanctions against Iran.

JCPOA unraveled, and Iran resumed its nuclear enrichment program. As relations among the signatories to that accord degraded, a new alignment against the United States and its allies began. Even as the quality of life plummeted in Iran, even as protestors took to the streets against the death of an incarcerated young woman accused of nothing more than not wearing a hijab, and even as Trump could not convince Iran to succumb to his demands, China and Russia threw Iran a lifeline: Along with Russian oil and gas, they opened alternatives to US-controlled banking/trade platforms and fossil fuel markets to Iran.

Iran then mounted accelerating investment upgrades to its military hardware, built a vast new network of internal arms manufacturing facilities (particularly in missile and drone technology), and, with Russian help, deployed an ultra-modern radar and began to add a serious anti-aircraft/missile defense system. Iran also upped its investment and support to what have become its regional surrogates against Israel and the United States, particularly Hezbollah, the Houthis and, of course, Hamas. As Russia struggled to maintain its military supply chain to battle Ukraine, as China played a hidden game to support Moscow, North Korea and Iran became direct manufacturing exporters of munitions to Russia. Iran’s drones were particularly effective.

Between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran has never been this powerful since the ancient Persian Empire (559 B.C.E. to 331 B.C.E.). Its surrogates have been profoundly disruptive, achieving unanticipated levels of success. Even as Iran is a domestic wreck, elections of hard-right, vetted candidates continue. Writing for the June 30th Wall Street Journal, Sune Engel Rasmussen and Laurence Norman explain the depth of the American failure in containing Iran: “The winner of Iran’s presidential election will inherit domestic discord and an economy battered by sanctions, but also a strength: Tehran has more sway on the international stage than in decades.

“Iran, under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s leadership, thwarted decades of U.S. pressure and emerged from years of isolation largely by aligning itself with Russia and China, giving up on integration with the West and throwing in its lot with two major powers just as they amped up confrontation with Washington. Iran’s economy remains battered by U.S. sanctions, but oil sales to China and weapons deals with Russia have offered financial and diplomatic lifelines… It also effectively exploited decades of U.S. mistakes in the Middle East and big swings in White House policy toward the region between one administration and the next.

“Today, Tehran poses a greater threat to American allies and interests in the Middle East than at any point since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979… Iran’s military footprint reaches wider and deeper than ever. Iranian-backed armed groups have hit Saudi oil facilities with missiles and paralyzed global shipping in the Red Sea. They have dominated politics in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria, and launched the most devastating strike on Israel in decades, when Hamas attacked in October. Iran launched its first direct military attack from its soil on Israel in April. It has also orchestrated attacks on opponents in Europe and beyond, Western officials say…

“[In recent years,] Iran’s regional footprint grew. Iranian support helped Syrian President Bashar al-Assad survive the Arab Spring and a civil war. Iran gained deeper influence in Syria and established a land corridor leading from Tehran to Syria’s Mediterranean coast via Iraq, which it used to transport weapons and personnel. It positioned allied militias near Israel’s border in Syria and Lebanon… In Syria, Iran also forged a partnership with Russia, which came to Assad’s aid in 2015. The relationship grew with war in Ukraine, where Iran supplies Russia with drones….

“The consequences—drones for Russia in Ukraine, the threat from Iran-backed militias, Tehran’s recent expansion of its nuclear program—will remain pressing issues regardless of who wins the second round of the Iranian election on July 5 or the U.S. election in November.” In the 45 years since the Iranian theocracy was founded, US president after president (with a brief respite during the Obama administration) has predicted the Iran’s religious government would implode on its own… and has acted to accelerate that prediction. With zero success, and in fact, incenting Iran both to up its rhetoric and military strength to the contrary.

As the infection of autocracy has spread worldwide, a recent global IPSOS/KCL poll showed that of nations surveyed, Iran, Russia, China and North Korea produced the largest sentiment category supporting the proposition that those nations (and I might note, Israel) do and would use their power for bad purposes. Despite its chaos and polarization, the US polled heavily into a positive perception. With Joe Biden’s abysmal debate results, could Donald Trump’s increasingly probable ascension towards reelection change those poll results and wildly delight the new Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

I’m Peter Dekom, and the “only I can fix it” former President continues to promise what he absolutely cannot deliver and clearly has not delivered… with a clear track record of disaster… except for very rich Americans and white Christian nationalists.