Iran another chapter in Trump’s march of folly
Op-ed: In his passion to obsessively destroy everything achieved by Obama, the US president is banging the drums of war and is about to undermine one of the world’s most important accomplishments—the historic agreement with Iran.
There were no medium shades in his messages: He’s the good guy, they’re the bad guys, and he’s the only one who can fix America, build a wall with Mexico and make it pay for it, destroy former President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan and rebuild the infrastructures and airports.
When he entered the White House, he intensified the noisemaking and tantrums to divert the attention from the fact that he wasn’t doing any of the things he had promised to. And so His Royal Trumpness kept speaking with great volume and running the White House his way: Hurling insults, creating chaos—with zero results.
Trump will soon mark the end of his first year as president, and he should be losing sleep over his approval ratings: According to an Associated Press poll published earlier this week, only 44 percent of Republicans believe America is headed in the right direction. Just four months ago, 60 percent of Republicans said the country was headed in the right direction—which means he is experiencing a major decline in his own power base.
This decline was echoed Monday in the words of senior Republican senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, who said that Trump’s recklessness could put the United States “on the path to World War III.” And this comes after Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, called the president “a moron.”
In this state of affairs, Trump knows that he has to rally his political base again and indicate that he is keeping his promises. This week, the agreement with Iran is on the table, the agreement he is threatening to decertify. This doesn’t mean he will cancel it, but he could open a window to a lot of trouble for the world, the United States and Israel.
I doubt Trump has ever read the full agreement signed between the world powers and Iran, but he has concluded that it’s the worst agreement ever. The entire American security echelon, as well as the Israeli military echelon, were of the opinion that Iran was honoring the commitments it had undertaken and had frozen its nuclear program.
The agreement, which was signed during the Obama era with the former president’s intensive involvement, did what a military operation couldn’t do: It completely halted the centrifuges and blocked the Iranian nuclear program. This hasn’t turned Iran into part of the family of nations, of course—it still supports terror and undermines Middle East stability—but that’s not part of the nuclear agreement.
What Trump is about to do will play into the hands of Iran, which will have the best of all possible worlds: The heavy sanctions have been lifted, the blocked funds have been flowing in, and the Islamic Republic is exporting oil and conducting international business deals. Trump’s move thus seems like another chapter in his march of folly. It could even prompt Iran to declare later on that the US did not hold up its part of the agreement, and that the agreement is therefore canceled and Iran is resuming its nuclear program.
Trump, like General Tom Thumb, is marching the army to war, threatening North Korea with fire and rage and declaring that he is capable of destroying it. However, he isn’t marching with a sharp pin in his hand, but with a terrifying nuclear arsenal.
Instead of hushing the Iranian arena at a time of such a serious crisis with North Korea, the president is banging the drums of war in pursuit of his obsessive goal to destroy everything achieved by Obama. And entirely for the sake of showing that he is better, he is about to undermine one of the world’s most important achievements: The historic agreement with Iran, which has provided relative calm for Israel too.
