Overnight, the American President again took to Twitter but this time to deploy the latest in CAPS LOCK technology to threaten Iran. The tweet was directed toward President Rouhani who had earlier warned that “America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.” It was, as far as Iranian rhetoric goes, almost restrained but clearly, Trump doesn’t parse the language of internal Iranian politics too well. Or perhaps he’s just been waiting for an opportunity to turn the world’s attention away from Russia, Playboy models, and the news that his former attorney, Michael Cohen, is threatening to cooperate with authorities.
“NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”
Iran is always a fine distraction, giving any American President chance to threaten something that sounds like nuclear annihilation. And if that sounds worrying, it’s because it probably is. Nothing should be assumed with Trump, though you would also be right to think that we’ve been here before. He threatened “fire and fury” towards North Korea, only to follow it up with a show summit and the empty assurance that problems in the peninsula had been solved with a handshake. This is now the familiar Trump two-step; a dance that’s often been repeated but usually on a slightly less thermonuclear scale. NATO was in real trouble until The Donald arrived and sorted it out. Now relations are better than ever. Then there was Russia, with whom American relations had never been worse until he sat down with Putin. Then there was the entire crisis with Obama’s America, which is now doing great. It’s a narrative ripped straight out of reality TV which circles endlessly around manufactured drama.
So bear all that in mind when considering what is most likely to happen with Iran. Does that mean we can expect a US/Iran summit and a chance to solve the problems with a new deal? With Trump, it’s impossible to rule anything out.
Yet we should strip Trump’s toxic brand of politics from the equation and consider what’s left. Trump might be waving a big stick but it should be seen in the context of this administration’s approach to Iran which, unlike other areas of policy, makes some rational sense. Iran is a very different kind of problem than that posed by North Korea. Arguably, with Kim Jong-Un, Trump was meddling in a conflict that will always be solved through China. It’s scary high-level diplomacy, dealing with the lives of millions in the Far East, and therefore threatening the global economy. Yet North Korea has always been something of a contained problem. Iran is something quite different. The threat it poses is significantly larger but also much more conventional.
If you believe that the Iran Deal was a means of kicking a problem down the road, then the Trump administration IS certainly leaning into the problem and offering a proactive approach. After Trump’s tweet, Secretary Pompeo attacked what he called the “kleptocratic regime” operating in Iran, highlighting the levels of corruption inside the country’s elite whilst ordinary Iranians starve. Iran is a nation with internal dynamics that can be exploited. Revolution, whilst not an immediate possibility, is not an impossibility. It is a nation where soft power might have a greater impact than hard power. Iranian youth are outward looking, culturally susceptible as any to fashions and trends. Iran’s leaders look with increasing concern towards Saudi Arabia, where Muhammad bin Salman has been introducing small but visibly impactful reforms. They must fear that their era is drawing to a close.
This might be the approach that’s being played out, albeit with an unconventional President and in a crazy, media driven, contradictory, and emotionally draining context. If you believe that Rouhani is moderate, then the danger is that a bellicose America will undermine his leadership and bring the ultraconservatives back into power. If, however, you consider Rouhani part of the continued problem with Iran, then the American preference might well be to give power back to the ultraconservatives who, in the long term, pose a greater danger to the internal stability of the regime. Trump might be gambling that he will have to make the Iranian problem worse before it gets better. In the long term, there’s much to commend about that plan. In the short term, however, the world will get a little hotter and nowhere has it been clear that this President has the ability to cope with that kind of heat.