U.S. Alone & Confused on Iran

Date: 18 May 2019 - 21:18

News ID: ۶۶۰۹۲

WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Donald Trump won the White House pledging to wind down the nation’s many foreign entanglements and put "America First.” But as his administration in recent days has sent mixed signals on the prospects of a military conflict with Iran, Trump’s campaign trail promise is being put to the test.
With the 2020 election approaching, the political pitfalls ahead for the first-term Republican president could be serious.
While Trump enjoys overwhelming support from his party, there is little appetite among his loyalists for a new military conflict in the Middle East.
Asked this week if the U.S. was going to war with Iran, Trump said simply: "I hope not.”
Aware of the potential backlash from within his party, the president is trying to play down the possibility of hostilities. He held the door open for negotiations amid reports that he was pushing back against his more hawkish advisers’ preference for a military solution.
Prominent Trump supporters offered a pointed warning on Friday about the prospect of a new war, which they view as a direct violation of his "America First” pledge.
"It would be a disaster for him and for the country getting into another military engagement in the Middle East,” said Corey Stewart, who led Trump’s 2016 campaign in Virginia. "It does concern me that the president has (national security adviser John) Bolton and a lot of these neocons advising him. That’s clearly not what he ran on and what most Americans want.”
Foreign policy threatens to be a significant political liability for Trump heading into his 2020 reelection campaign.
Overall, 63 percent of Americans said they disapproved of his job handling foreign policy, according to a January poll conducted by Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Like other issues, the partisan divide was overwhelming: 76 percent of Republicans approved, while just 8 percent of Democrats said the same.
Yet the Republican Party under Trump’s leadership has shifted away from wanting the United States to play an aggressive role in world affairs. Foreign policy hawks in the GOP who have long embraced a muscular foreign policy have been marginalized in recent years, dismissed as "globalists.”
Trump on Friday sought to blame the media for the sense of mounting unease over Iran.
"They put out so many false messages that Iran is totally confused,” he told a crowd of real estate agents in Washington, complaining about media coverage of his administration’s recent moves. "I don’t know, that might be a good thing.”
Meanwhile, U.S. allies have rallied to Trump’s side on many of his signature foreign policy initiatives, from North Korea to Venezuela. But as tensions surged this week over Iran, it became clear the American president was going it alone.
Efforts to ramp up the U.S. military presence in the Middle East -- expediting the deployment of a carrier battle group and sending a Patriot anti-missile battery and bomber squadron -- generated as much alarm among allies as did U.S. claims of escalating threats from Iran. Scattered statements of support for the U.S. were folded in with concern over uncertainty about where Trump’s strategy was headed.
"We don’t have the faintest idea what is going to happen because it doesn’t seem the U.S. actually knows,” said Tomas Valasek, director of Carnegie Europe and a former Slovak envoy to NATO. "Trump doesn’t seem to know what he wants.”
By week’s end, the president who repeatedly criticized the Obama administration for "telegraphing” its military intentions was openly trying to dial back tensions, saying he hopes there isn’t a conflict and repeating his interest in having direct talks with the leaders in Tehran. White House officials briefing reporters on Friday say they’re "sitting by the phone” waiting for Iranian officials to call.
Waiting for a call -- outreach that would be politically impossible for Iran to make under U.S. sanctions and denunciations -- highlights a critical gap in relations between Tehran and Washington: the apparent lack of a diplomatic back channel.
Even at the peak of U.S.-North Korea tensions, there was a line of communication available through the United Nations to try to ease tensions.
Amid worries of war in the Persian Gulf, Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif was being welcomed on a trip to Asia that included stops in China, India and Japan. India is due to make a decision on future purchases of Iranian oil after ongoing elections conclude. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated his government’s support for the nuclear deal with Iran that Trump quit last year.
On Iran, analysts point to just two regimes seen as enthusiastic about the rising tensions: the occupying regime of Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Before he was publicly rebuked by U.S. and British officials, the UK’s top general in the American-led Operation Inherent Resolve, Chris Ghika, told reporters on Tuesday that there was no increased threat from Iran-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. And Spain this week withdrew a frigate that was part of an American-led combat fleet near the Persian Gulf waters.
Germany’s deputy foreign minister called American actions a "distressful example of U.S. unilateralism.”
Looming over U.S.-European ties is continuing frustration over Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement. Frustrated with the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions, Iranian officials this month gave European partners 60 days to deliver on promises of economic benefits from staying in the accord, or risk them disavowing some of its key provisions.
As Middle East tensions mounted, Trump began signaling that he’s open to talks. But Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Lead of the Islamic Revolution, has ruled out talks for now, saying "negotiations are like a poison as long as the U.S. remains the same way it is.”
In trying to reel in talk of imminent conflict, Trump suggested that uncertainty over U.S. intentions was part of his plan, saying on Twitter that "With all of the Fake and Made Up News out there, Iran can have no idea what is actually going on!” He later called any Iranian confusion "a good thing.”
That approach prompted a rebuke by Iran’s Zarif, who likes referring to Netanyahu and U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton as part of a "B-team” fomenting war.
"With the #B_Team doing one thing & @realDonaldTrump saying another thing, it is apparently the U.S. that ‘doesn’t know what to think,”’ Zarif wrote on Twitter.