How Will Trump Tackle Iran?

The field of play is very different today, but “maximum pressure” is just as unlikely to work.

Donald Trump begins his second stint in the White House with big plans and a world that looksquite different from the one he dealt with during his first term. He will inherit a cornucopia of foreign policy problems and international crises left over from the previous administration.

The 15-month long war in Gaza may be paused for the time being, but the safe bet is to put your money on the fighting resuming after the first six-week phase is over. Trump may havebig dreams about terminating the three year-old war in Ukraine, but the president’s nationalsecurity team is still very much in the process of figuring out a diplomatic formula that wouldbring Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to thenegotiating table. Trump, who in his January 20 inaugural address said he wanted to be known as a “peacemaker,” will also attempt to strike a normalization agreement betweenIsrael and Saudi Arabia, an ambition that will be moot if the Gaza ceasefire doesn’t survive.

There is one problem, however, that remains similar to those of past U.S. administrations: Iran’s nuclear program.

Unfortunately for Trump, the Iranian nuclear issue is as confounding as it has ever been. TheInternational Atomic Energy Agency reported in November that Iran’s total enriched uraniumstockpile is now more than 6,600 kg, approximately 22 times what Tehran would have beenpermitted under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In December, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi assessed that Iran was enriching 5-7 kg of 60 percent enricheduranium a month, a short technical step away from the 90 percent required for bomb fuel. TheIranians have installed more centrifuges of higher quality and are churning out more uraniumat a higher level, both as a pressure tactic against Washington and as a way to bag moreleverage in the event nuclear talks recommence. The now former Secretary of State AntonyBlinken put it bluntly over the summer: “Where we are now is not in a good place.”

Trump would certainly agree, even if he remains unsure of how to go about managing thesituation. He’s no doubt receiving a lot of advice. Foreign policy hawks like Sen. LindseyGraham (R-SC), who has advocated for bombing Iran’s nuclear program for as long as I’vebeen alive, is jumping on television to push for the military option. The argument essentiallyboils down to this: A diplomatic agreement with Iran would cost too much for the United States, and the Iranians can’t be trusted anyway.

This recommendation is likely entering some sympathetic ears in the administration. Trump’steam is staffed with Iran hawks who would like nothing more than to see Iranian power in theMiddle East depreciate to a pittance. The Wall Street Journal reported in December that U.S. military strikes were being actively discussed as a potential option, not a surprise given thatthe Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations all had military plans on the shelf in the eventthey wanted to pull the trigger.

In the end, all three administrations chose to take the military option off the table and insteadstick with a mix of economic sanctions and diplomacy. Even the Bush administration viewedthe benefits of such an operation as not worth the costs. There were times during Trump’s firstterm when he could have authorized military action against Iran but didn’t because he didn’twant a major war in the Middle East on his watch.

The same concern should be at the front of the president’s mind. Yes, the Iranians are notablyweaker today than they were back in 2019. Hezbollah, Tehran’s most important proxy, is licking its wounds after a ferocious months-long Israeli air and ground campaign in Lebanon. Hamas is doing the same in Gaza. Syria is no longer an outpost for the Islamic RevolutionaryGuard Corps (IRGC), which had a relatively cooperative partner in Bashar al-Assad. Assadwas willing to outsource his foreign policy to the Iranians if it meant unconditional Iraniansupport for his family’s five-decade long rule. After so many years in which Iran used Syria as a key plank its “axis of resistance” strategy, the demise of Assad and the emergence of a newSyrian government that wants to rebalance its foreign relations away from Tehran is causingheartburn in Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s inner circle.

Even so, a U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities still isn’t worth the trouble. To start, justbecause the Iranians are weaker doesn’t mean they’re powerless. Iranian-backed proxies stilleffectively rule the roost in Iraq, whose coalition government remains beholden to the verymilitias that Baghdad has tried to tame and integrate into the Iraqi security forces. There arestill approximately 2,500 U.S. troops stationed in Iraq who present prime targets for themilitias; indeed, U.S. bases in Iraq are almost certain to be the first targets if Iran retaliates fora U.S. bombing campaign. And we shouldn’t kid ourselves: if Iran was willing to send a dozen ballistic missiles into U.S. bases in Iraq to avenge the death of a single IRGC commander by the name of Qasem Soleimani, then U.S. policymakers need to assume theIranians will engage in even stronger retaliation if their nuclear program is hit.

Then there’s the issue of whether military force would be effective. For instance, would Iran’snuclear capability be destroyed? If not, would it at least force a strategic reconsideration in the Iranian establishment about its nuclear policy? The answer to both is probably “no.” Bombs can demolish buildings, but they can’t demolish knowledge. Unless every Iranianscientist or engineer is killed or captured, then Tehran’s nuclear complex can always rebuildand continue where they left off. The U.S. would then be in the position of adopting its veryown “mow the grass” strategy, dropping missiles on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure every fewyears at an exceedingly high cost to its own forces in the region.

Iran’s nuclear strategy is also unlikely to move in the way we would want. Every time theU.S. or Israel has taken action against Iran’s nuclear program—whether it be throughcyberattacks, assassinations or undeclared drone strikes—Tehran has responded byaccelerating its nuclear work or constructing replacement facilities deeper underground. U.S. military action is likely to harden, not soften, Khamenei’s position. The U.S. intelligencecommunity continues to assess that Khamenei has yet to make the decision to actuallyassemble a nuclear device, likely due in part to fear about how Washington would react. Thatfear, though, would go out the window after the U.S. attacked. If anything, U.S. bombsdropping on Iranian soil would make the work of those within the Iranian power structurearguing for a nuclear deterrent easier.

What, then, should Trump do? The temptation is to return to his first administration’smaximum pressure policy, which severely hurt the Iranian government’s finances and cut itsoil exports by nearly 70 percent. But this strategy did next to nothing to alter Iran’s calculuson the nuclear file and actually worsened the problem once Iran was free to break away fromthe JCPOA restrictions. A second bite at the maximum pressure apple is unlikely to do anybetter.

But if this is the route Trump is set to take, he needs to modify it. More economic sanctionsmust be paired with a diplomatic strategy that is viable. This can only occur if maximalistdemands are replaced with realistic ones. Instead of pressuring Iran to concede on theinconceivable, like abolishing its nuclear apparatus and changing its entire foreign policy toAmerica’s liking, Trump should try to reinstitute strict, enforceable nuclear limits on whatIran can and can’t do. If Trump wants a deal better than the JCPOA, he’s likely going to haveto offer Tehran more economic and diplomatic concessions to get there. The best that can be hoped for is a return to the pre-2018 status quo, when U.S.–Iranian relations were moremanageable than they are today and international inspectors had the power to monitor Iran’snuclear infrastructure, root to branch.

This will be unsatisfying to Trump, who often views concessions as defeatism. Yet in international diplomacy, the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good-enough. And the perfectis rarely an option to begin with.

Source: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-will-trump-tackle-iran/