Follow us on social

1280px-secretary_pompeo_delivers_keynote_remarks_at_united_against_nuclear_iran’s_2019_iran_summit_48793609858

Two years after JCPOA withdrawal, Americans are less safe, the Middle East less peaceful

While the Trump administration touts its maximum pressure campaign as a route to peace in the Middle East, Iran’s increased hostilities prove it wrong.

Analysis | Washington Politics

On 9 May, the second anniversary of the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that ‘Americans are safer and the Middle East is more peaceful than if we had remained in the #JCPOA’. Any way one looks at it, this is demonstrably untrue. The truth is the opposite.

On the nuclear front, President Donald Trump’s withdrawal prompted Iran to suspend its adherence to all of the limits imposed by the JCPOA, something the Trump administration thought was unlikely. In September 2018, a senior administration official told the International Crisis Group that the US could ‘have our cake and eat it too’, in other words, violate the agreement while Iran abided by it. Continuing to uphold those limits, as Iran did up until a year ago, would have meant it remained at least a year away from being able to produce a weapon’s worth of highly enriched uranium. Instead, the so-called breakout period is now about six months.

Iran has not pulled out of the deal entirely. It still accepts the enhanced inspection requirements and participates in the oversight mechanisms of the JCPOA. It also pledges to return to full compliance if it receives the economic benefits provided for in the accord.

On the peace front, over the past year, Iran has attacked Saudi oil facilities, seized tankers, sabotaged other oil tankers, fired ballistic missiles at a joint US–Iraqi base, and reportedly encouraged militia groups that have repeatedly attacked US forces in Iraq. All of this malicious activity stems from the breakdown in relations that Trump instigated. The region is less peaceful and Americans less safe as a consequence.

On the economic front, Trump’s re-imposition and reinforcement of nuclear-related sanctions has certainly weakened Iran. Oil exports have fallen from 2.5 million barrels per day to a few hundred thousand, which it has to sell at a discount below the already depressed global price.  The economy shrank by 7.65% in 2019 and is projected to fall another 6% this year. Iran’s unprecedented request for US$5 billion of emergency funding from the International Monetary Fund to fight the coronavirus pandemic remains under discussion amidst US efforts to block it. Causing economic duress is the only metric by which Trump and his enablers have any grounds for claiming tactical triumph. But how bleeding Iran makes Americans safer and the region more peaceful defies logic.

Theoretical consequences of Iran’s economic duress

Two imaginative theories are proposed. The first is that economic duress will cause the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) to give way to a regime that is democratic, peace-loving and pro-American. According to Trump associates, such as his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and former national security advisor, John Bolton, the exiled Mujahedin-e-Khalq group (MEK) is the ideal vehicle for this would-be miraculous transition, even though the MEK is neither democratic nor peaceful, has a record of terrorism and near zero support in Iran itself.

Fundamentalist opponents of the IRI are fond of fearmongering claims that Iran is on the verge of economic collapse and have repeated this incessantly for over two years. But having lived under sanctions for four decades, Iranians have acquired resilience. Moreover, the institutions that bind the IRI together – the conservative clergy, the Islamic Republican Guard Corps (IRGC), the courts and the other elements of the security apparatus – remain as firmly in control as ever. In the unlikely event that regime change were to transpire, the new leadership would almost surely come from the ranks of these groups. Iran would be even more vengeful and antagonistic.

A more sophisticated, but equally mistaken, theory behind the ‘bleed Iran’ policy rests on the notion that war with the IRI is inevitable sooner or later. In anticipation of this coming conflict, the argument goes that it is best to weaken Iran now in whatever way possible. Maximum pressure is thus designed to force Iran not to the bargaining table, but to the beggar’s bush.

The obvious fallacy behind this line of thinking is that war is by no means inevitable, but acting as though it is can make conflict a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the absence of a US provocation, Iran has no reason now, or in the future, to attack the US or its forces. This is not to absolve Iran for the deaths it has caused to many American soldiers in Iraq over the years, nor to suggest that the IRGC is a benign organisation – it is deadly and ruthless. The IRGC, however, does not threaten the US homeland. The very real differences that the US has with Iran can be addressed through peaceful means of diplomacy, coalition-building and deterrence, the latter backed by the proportionate use of force as needed.

Among these tools, the Trump administration prioritises physical threats, giving short shrift to negotiation and partnerships. Yet Iran hardly seems deterred, as witnessed by its harassment of US warships in the Gulf last month.

Pompeo’s false boast that Americans are safer and the Middle East more peaceful as a result of Trump’s move two years ago is pure propaganda. Withdrawing from the JCPOA was an atrocious foreign-policy mistake.

This article has been republished with permission from the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Mike Pompeo at the 2019 United Against Nuclear Iran conference (credit: U.S. State Department)
Analysis | Washington Politics
Diplomacy Watch: Russia retaliates after long-range missile attacks
Diplomacy Watch: Ukraine uses long-range missiles, Russia responds

Diplomacy Watch: Russia retaliates after long-range missile attacks

QiOSK

As the Ukraine War passed its 1,000-day mark this week, the departing Biden administration made a significant policy shift by lifting restrictions on key weapons systems for the Ukrainians — drawing a wave of fury, warnings and a retaliatory ballistic missile strike from Moscow.

On Thursday, Russia launched what the Ukrainian air force thought to be a non-nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, which if true, would be the first time such weapons were used and mark a major escalatory point in the war.

keep readingShow less
Netanyahu Gallant
Top image credit: FILE PHOTO: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Yoav Gallant during a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv , Israel , 28 October 2023. ABIR SULTAN POOL/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant

QiOSK

On Thursday the International Court of Justice (ICC) issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as a member of Hamas leadership.

The warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant were for charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The court unanimously agreed that the prime minister and former defense minister “each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

keep readingShow less
Ukraine landmines
Top image credit: A sapper of the 24th mechanized brigade named after King Danylo installs an anti-tank landmine, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, on the outskirts of the town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region, Ukraine October 30, 2024. Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via REUTERS

Ukrainian civilians will pay for Biden's landmine flip-flop

QiOSK

The Biden administration announced today that it will provide Ukraine with antipersonnel landmines for use inside the country, a reversal of its own efforts to revive President Obama’s ban on America’s use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of the indiscriminate weapons anywhere except the Korean peninsula.

The intent of this reversal, one U.S. official told the Washington Post, is to “contribute to a more effective defense.” The landmines — use of which is banned in 160 countries by an international treaty — are expected to be deployed primarily in the country’s eastern territories, where Ukrainian forces are struggling to defend against steady advances by the Russian military.

keep readingShow less

Election 2024

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.