If he continues his current negotiating approach with Iran, President Trump risks being the second coming of Barack Obama.
Thanks to fantastic Israeli military achievements, Trump inherited unprecedented leverage to drive a hard bargain with Iran over its nuclear program. Instead, he appears on the cusp of repeating Obama’s fatal mistake by cutting a weak deal that will maintain Iran’s nuclear threat, strengthen the Tehran regime and make war more likely.
For the second time in a week, Trump’s chief negotiator, Steve Witkoff, appears to have left the Iranians with the impression that the U.S. would accept Iran retaining some capability to enrich uranium. Iran’s chief negotiator, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, left his second-round discussions with Witkoff saying that technical experts would soon discuss “the maximum levels to which Iran could enrich uranium.”
That would be a terrible mistake. It would leave the door open for the Islamic Republic at some future time of its own choosing to again ramp up enrichment to levels sufficient for nuclear weapons. The only means of closing that door for good is to eliminate Iran’s enrichment program entirely. Indeed, in 2018, Trump withdrew from Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear agreement precisely because it “allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium and — over time — reach the brink of nuclear breakout.”
Preemptive surrender to Iran on enrichment makes no sense. U.S. leverage is at its height. Israeli strikes have rendered Iran and its terrorist proxies across the Middle East weaker than ever. That includes destroying all Iran’s strategic defenses, leaving the entire country, including its key nuclear sites, acutely vulnerable to a joint U.S.-Israeli attack. Iran’s ability to retaliate has been drastically reduced. Any attempt to do so would only guarantee an even more devastating response that could threaten the Iranian regime itself.
Indeed, it was precisely that palpable fear of an attack, and stark warnings that it could well trigger major domestic upheaval, that convinced Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to come to the table after repeatedly banning new nuclear negotiations.
Instead of exploiting that strong hand like the master negotiator he’s supposed to be, it appears that, despite Trump’s recent threats to strike Iran, and his deployment of substantial capabilities to do so, he may fear military action even more than Khamenei does.
Last week, leaks to the New York Times revealed that Trump had been convinced by so-called “restrainers” in his administration to nix an Israeli plan to hit Iran out of concerns about getting America into another Middle East war and spiking oil prices. By casting doubt on his own willingness to use force, Trump has dramatically increased the odds that the only deal he will be able to make is a bad deal.
That would not only invite embarrassing comparisons to Obama, it would actually increase the risks of the regional war that Trump keenly seeks to avoid. Israel has made clear that it will not sacrifice this unique window to act against Iran’s program on the altar of another bad nuclear agreement. It will feel compelled to attack even without U.S. assistance. That will put Trump in a difficult position: either he helps ensure Israel is successful and works to deter and defeat a harsh Iranian response, thereby cratering his own bad deal, or he does nothing, shredding America’s credibility and emboldening Iran to retaliate strongly against Israel and possibly the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Better to align and stand with Israel now.
Trump also overstates the benefits of the deal he’s pursuing. He has said it will “make Iran rich again” and would lead to a “a wonderful, great, happy country.” But why should the U.S. seek to enrich and make happy a tyrannical regime that terrorizes its own people and whose reason for existence remains to destroy Israel and bring “death to America”?
With or without a nuclear deal, America’s interest is to keep the Islamic Republic weak until it falls — not by the force of an American invasion but by the hand of its own people, supported by sustained U.S. political, economic, and if necessary military pressure to ensure that the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism never acquires the world’s most dangerous weapons.
Trump has a rare historic opportunity to finally and fully take care of Iran’s nuclear threat, whether diplomatically or by helping Israel do so militarily. Now is no time to go wobbly.
Michael Makovsky, a former Pentagon official, is president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, where John Hannah, former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, is the Wax Senior Fellow.
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