Trump Just Threw All Our Progress on Iran Down the Drain, Again
Almost all foreign policy experts and political officials agree that the killing of Qassem Suleimani was a morally correct action: Suleimani was responsible for the death of hundreds of Americans during and since the Iraq War. However, the Trump Administration’s decision to assassinate Suleimani has upended the status quo in the Middle East and puts Americans and allies in the region at risk.
At times, administrations must make decisions like that of the Trump Administration in killing Suleimani, even ones that put Americans at risk. The Trump Administration claims that Suleimani was killed because intelligence indicated Suleimani was planning an attack on American diplomats. However, though the intelligence has yet to be released, Suleimani has planned attacks against Americans dating back to the Iraq War, making the administration’s explanation of an imminent attack less compelling. The killing of Suleimani also puts Americans at an even higher risk than before his death, regardless of whether he was planning an attack. Ayatollah Khamenei has vowed to take revenge for the attack on his most prominent general and fired missiles on U.S. bases in Iraq. The risk level for Americans is significantly higher than before the attack, a fact that completely undermines the face-value explanation for the attack given by the administration.
Now, as Iran retaliates, it is worth asking why the administration thought it strategically beneficial to kill Suleimani. Currently, the only answer seems to be Trump’s erratic nature.
Trump’s presidency began with the JCPOA intact and a compliant, nuclear-weapon-less Iran. Despite the Nuclear Deal’s success in preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons and the improvement in sentiment between Iran and the west, Trump pulled the plug on the agreement in favor of placing extreme economic sanctions on Iran, marking a major shift in U.S. policy towards Iran. To try and force regime change or regime moderation, which would bring Iran closer to the West, Trump chose starvation over diplomacy, a decision widely criticized by foreign policy experts.
The result: American abandonment of European allies and significant damage to American credibility. While the policy of economic sanctions did hurt Iran’s economy more than expected, Iran was unwilling to cut a new deal with Trump. As a result, the U.S. slowly backed Iran’s government into a corner from which they could only lash out. Iran’s attacks on tankers and Saudi oil fields were prime examples of this. The sanctions then began to weigh on the Iranian populace. When Iranian citizens began to protest in large numbers in the streets of Tehran, the Iranian government responded by slaughtering 1,500 protesters in the streets. Turmoil within Iran was finally brewing, and the sanctions seemed to be inching towards a regime change, or at least regime moderation.
Then, Trump decided to change course once again. In killing Suleimani, an extremely popular official in Iran, Trump shifted all the anger against the regime in Tehran towards the United States, evident in the massive funeral for Suleimani. The progress made through the JCPOA and economic sanctions are now undone. Regime change from within now seems a distant possibility as Iranian citizens rally behind their government.
Tehran knows it can’t win a war with the United States and, knowing this, officials in the Trump Administration may have thought Iran wouldn’t respond. Yet, Iran has. The Trump Administration seems not to have accounted for the very real possibility of war, unless that’s what it wanted all along. Trump threw out two strategies that appeared to be working towards the goal of regime change or moderation in Iran, only to put the U.S. on path for possibly another disruptive and destructive war in the Middle East. The erratic nature of Trump’s decision brings into question whether Trump was aware that he was risking Americans in the first place and whether he will know what to do now that Iran responded.
