In May 2018, Donald Trump took a situation where there was no crisis and created one.
This week, a year and change later, the crisis has come home to roost.
The crisis has been in the making since Trump in mid-2018 withdrew the United States from the international nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by President Barack Obama. Under that agreement, Iran would stop working on a nuclear bomb, and the U.S. would return Iranian money that had been frozen in U.S. banks and reduce economic sanctions that had been in place for years. Trump pulled out of the agreement even though the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran was in compliance. On that same day, Trump decided unilaterally to reimpose crippling sanctions on Iran.
This year, even with Iran’s economy crumbling, Trump keeps tightening the screws, and Iran has lashed out.
In April, the Trump administration, over the objections of Pentagon officials, designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, and in May imposed even tighter sanctions on Tehran’s aluminum, iron and copper industries, sectors that make up about a tenth of its exports.
On June 13, two oil tankers were damaged by explosions in or near the Strait of Hormuz, a major thoroughfare for transporting much of the world’s oil. American officials blamed Iran for the attacks.
Days later, the Pentagon authorized the deployment of an additional 1,000 troops to the Middle East with surveillance and military equipment, intended to serve as a deterrent to Iran.
Early this week, Tehran said it would soon violate a significant piece of the 2015 international agreement designed to contain Iran’s nuclear program.
Then early Thursday morning an Iranian surface-to-air missile slammed into a Navy RQ-4 Global Hawk, an unpiloted surveillance drone, flying over the Strait of Hormuz at high altitude. Iran accused the United States of patrolling over its territorial waters. The Pentagon called the strike “unprovoked” and said that the aircraft was well within international airspace.
At first, sharing a stage with visiting Canadian president Justin Trudeau, Trump seemed to ease off the idea of a retaliatory strike or an escalation that could lead to war.
But on Friday morning, we woke to news that our president had approved and then canceled an attack on Iran with just minutes to spare. Trump tweeted:
“We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights [sic] when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not … proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry. … ” Trump said in two Twitter posts Friday morning.
Tell the truth. Did you ever in your wildest dreams think you’d be reading this kind of national war news from a president on Twitter?
But give credit where credit is due: Backing away from an unproportionate strike on Iran is the only smart thing Trump has done in regard to Iran.
Yet it’s also fair to ask: Since when would we expect this new Trump to call off airstrikes for humane reasons? This is the guy who says he’ll veto a bipartisan bill to stop his arms sales to the Saudis so they can continue to kill people in Yemen. This is the man who ordered families separated at the border and children put in cages. This is the guy who wants poverty programs reversed.
But Trump is all about appearances. Avoiding “dumb wars” is a core principle of Trumpism, and even a “proportional” U.S. military response, like shooting down an Iranian drone or attacking the base that fired the missile that brought down the U.S. drone, would likely force the Islamic Republic to up the stakes again, drawing Trump and us deeper into the Middle East quicksand.
On the other hand, where’s Trump’s “fire and fury?” You know he’ll hate to look weak heading into upcoming meetings at the G20 summit in Japan with Russian President Vladimir Putin and China President Xi Jinping. Some of those watching Trump’s tweets wondered if they might be the advisers to whom our president finally is listening.
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius says the Trump administration is playing the long game, waiting for Iran to grow weaker, while Iran needs to play a short game – to escape the U.S. choke-hold on its economy before it becomes fatal.
Even before Trump’s called-off airstrikes, Ignatius wrote: “This is a war that would be entirely unnecessary and would have very damaging consequences for Iran, the United States and the region. But there’s an ironclad illogic at work here, and the internal dynamics of U.S. and Iranian policy are pushing us closer to the brink.”
One thing is certain. The 2015 Iranian nuclear deal was working and now isn’t. Efforts to revive it grow dimmer everyday, while turmoil looks more likely by the hour.
It is a dilemma and crisis of Trump’s own making. But it is our waking nightmare.