Donald Trump keeps screaming that Iran should make Nuclear Deal with America and give up ambitions for Nuclear weapons. Problem is that a deal with America is not worth the paper its printed on. Recall that EU, US, Russia, China negotiated with Iran for more than a decade which ultimately culminated in ‘P5+1’ format and Nuclear Deal - JCPOA - was finally reached during Obama-Kerry-Mogherini tenure. The deal was approved by UN security council and created a mechanism for monitoring of Iran’s Nuclear program.
Then Donald Trump unilaterally junked the Nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran. After that, EU made no serious effort to create a separate bilateral agreement with Iran. Israel has a veto over US middle east policy and it pressured US to withdraw from the deal. Neocons like John Bolton also had a role in pushing for withdrawal from Nuclear deal. So a deal which was negotiated over a decade of haggling between all major superpowers was junked overnight in 2018.
So we should discard all the rhetoric from Trump regime on demanding Iran to come to negotiating table and reach a deal. Deal was already there which US killed unnecessarily. Also note that after Biden came to White House in 2020, he also made no serious effort to restore the JCPOA. Biden’s middle east policy also had other blunders though i suspect that Biden wasn’t even in charge of decision making in 2024 due to failing health.
Trump’s rhetoric on Nuclear deal is just like his rhetoric on trade deals. Trump has imposed these insane tariffs on all countries of the world and demand that countries should approach America to make trade deals. The underlying basis of these tariffs is frivolous - calculating tariff rates based on size of trade deficit and declaring trade deficit as economic emergency. You can’t expect any rational trade negotiations with Trump regime when the entire pretext of tariffs is frivolous. Similarly, you can’t expect any rational negotiation with Trump regime on a Nuclear deal which US unilaterally and unnecessarily backed out of in the first place. US has no credibility at this point even among its allies.
But isn’t this the usual pattern of behavior by Trump regime? They will first break things based on frivolous reasons and then they will claim of a plan to fix them. Now Donald Trump can be dismissed as a crazy man who cannot be expected to take competent decisions. You would have expected competency from smart EU politicians. But this is what they think.
US & EU have given Nuclear monopoly to Israel. Only Israel is allowed to have Nuclear weapons in middle east and Israel encroaches upon US & EU’s middle east policy. But a major problem is that the western policy is a contradiction in itself. On one hand, the US & EU wants to block Iran from having Nuclear weapons. To resolve this, all major superpowers P5+1 including EU went through decade of marathon talks to reach a Nuclear deal with Iran that monitors its nuclear program. Then the west kills the deal. And then Israel attacks Iran with western backing. A lesson for Iran is similar to that of Saddam in Iraq. Deals with west and giving up Nuclear programs don’t matter. The west will attack and overthrow you regardless at any time.
Now US and Israel may bring a regime change in Iran but this creates new problems. Other countries which wants to have a sovereignty will think that Nuclear weapons are necessary for protection. This is not an entirely unreasonable expectation. This was the reason Pakistan built Nuclear weapons. Recently, Ukraine is also thinking on similar lines. Had Ukraine had Nuclear weapons, it might have deterred Russia from 2022 invasion. Dictators like Erdogan in Turkey and MBS in Saudi Arabia might also realize the importance of a Nuclear deterrence. Nuclear proliferation may increase.
Then there are more lessons to be remembered. Has EU learned anything from Syria and Libya conflict? All this rhetoric about Democracy and liberal values is nonsense and no real democracy emerged from heaps of destruction. But the conflict created wave of millions of refugees that poured from across the Mediterranean and other land routes. If there’s a regime collapse and anarchy in Iran, it will create new corridors of refugee migration all the way from Afghanistan and Iran to Europe. This will not only create fiscal burdens and security problems but also destabilize domestic politics in EU nations. Refugee crisis will strengthen far right parties in Europe which are already gaining momentum.
In conclusion, US-EU-Israel thinks that it’s a golden opportunity to bring regime change in Iran (read my previous article). Iran’s Nuclear program is just a pretext to bring regime change in Iran. It’s no different than Iraq’s WMDs. While we have an insane man in White House who can’t take any sensible decisions, the smart politicians of EU also lack sensibility in the matter.
I think Biden did not attempt to revive it because there would be no way to establish trust at that point, and can’t blame him- there is no way to reestablish trust with our allies now either. But finally they have let go of us and are working together on their own- on security pacts, trade pacts, etc. we have become far less influential to foreign policy now- we have shed the respect and influential power we built and benefitted from since WWII despite our abuse of that power. It’s over now, and it will take decades to revive any of that if we even can. Our empire has fallen, and if we don’t overthrow this government and revise the constitution to build a new and better version of our government, we will become like Hungary- an economy mired in stagnation due to regressive taxation and crony capitalism. And Biden was a placeholder, the more telling lack of action for which he was ultimately responsible was the careful refusal to hold anyone in trump’s admin let alone Trump himself accountable to stop the movement that after 40 years of diligent efforts from capturing the state. Intentional? Seems like it.
Hard not to wonder if the only possible lesson to be learned from Trump is that NO lesson can be learned...or at least no lesson that will matter longer than (possibly) overnight.
A difficult lesson to apply.