America media organisations seem reluctant to re-visit the question of why Trump wants Iran to have a nuclear deal again after quashing the Obama one in 2018. This site gives some of the background on the Obama deal.
It seems reasonable to assume that the original scrapping was all to do with Netanyahu getting into Trump's ear that the Obama deal wasn't good enough, even though it was going to keep things under control for a decade at least. Trump complied, which Netanyahu knew meant that Iran could have a few years of doing what they want, so that Israel could then claim justification to try to take out the nuclear facilities (even though I think it has always been claimed they were situated in locations pretty impossible to take out completely with normal munitions?).
Why Trump started talking about wanting a treaty again this year, before the current Israeli attack, is unclear - but I suspect the best guess would be that it was under pressure his new "pals" in Saudi Arabia and adjacent countries who don't care for Iran either. And there has been talk of Trump being unhappy with Netanyahu doing whatever the hell he wants in Gaza. Just as he now complains about Putin "going crazy".
In other words, seems very likely that Trump got played, and will continue to be played.
Update: Thomas Friedman in the New York Times sets out a "smart" way to end the fighting, which seems full of high hopes that are very unlikely to come to pass. Here's his idea:
There are only two ways to finish off this problem once and for all. One is for Israel to permanently occupy the West Bank, Gaza and all of Iran, as America did to Germany and Japan after World War II, and try to change the political culture. But Israel has no chance of occupying all of Iran, and it has occupied the West Bank for 58 years and still has not wiped out Hamas’s influence there — let alone secular Palestinian nationalism. That is because Palestinians are every bit as indigenous as the Jews in their homeland. Israel will never “once and for all” them into submission, unless they kill every last one.
The only way to even get close to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “once and for all” is by working toward a two-state solution. Which brings me to what Trump should do now regarding Iran. He says he still hopes “there’s going to be a deal.” If he wants a good deal, he should declare that he is doing two things at once.
One, that he will equip Israel’s Air Force with the B-2 bombers and 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs and U.S. trainers that would give Israel the capacity to destroy all of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities unless Iran immediately agrees to allow teams from the International Atomic Energy Agency to disassemble these facilities and to have access into every nuclear site in Iran to recover all fissile material that Tehran has generated. Only if Iran completely complies with these conditions should it be allowed to have a civilian nuclear program under strict IAEA controls. But Iran will comply only under a credible threat of force.
At the same time, Trump should declare that his administration recognizes the Palestinians as a people who have a right to national self-determination. But to realize that, they must demonstrate that they can fulfill the responsibilities of statehood by generating a new Palestinian Authority leadership that the United States deems credible, free of corruption and committed both to effectively serving Palestinian citizens in the West Bank and Gaza and to coexisting with Israel.
Trump must also make clear, though, that he will not tolerate the rapid settlement expansion and one-state reality that Israel is now creating, which is a prescription for a forever war because Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza won’t disappear or “once and for all” give up their national identity and aspirations. (At the end of May the Netanyahu government approved 22 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank — the largest expansion in decades — which is simply insane.)
To that end, Trump could also say that his administration will be committed to sponsoring peace talks for a two-state solution — with the Trump peace plan for a pathway toward two states from his previous presidency as the minimum starting point but not ending point. That, the parties themselves must negotiate directly.
To be ready to out-crazy the crazies has been a necessary condition for Israel to survive in the Middle East, but it is not a sufficient one. As the Gaza war demonstrates, that strategy just begets more of the same. Even if it seems unfair at times, even if it seems naïve at times, a peace-loving nation has to keep exploring alternatives and pairing force with diplomacy. It’s not only the best policy for Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians; it’s also the best way for Israel and America to isolate Iran.
As such, if Trump really wants to forge peace in the Middle East, which I believe he does, America must not become Netanyahu’s captive or Iran’s patsy. The United States has no interest in making Israel safe for messianic expansion or Iran safe for nuclear messianism. Trump must ignore the dangerous, knee-jerk isolationism of JD Vance. And he must eschew the equally foolish Netanyahu-can-do-no-wrong advice of G.O.P. armchair generals and evangelicals. Neither serves U.S. interests or credibility in the region.
And I guess this plan might just work - were it not for Trump, his nutjob base, his nutjob advisers, Netanyahu, and the Ayatollah.
Update 2: Speaking of Trump's "advisers" - it seems there is some serious in-fighting within the MAGA group of "celebrity" talking heads:
Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson has fired back at MAGA figures upset that he accused President Donald Trump of abandoning the “America First” movement.
Carlson, 56, ranted for 45 minutes on Steve Bannon’s show on Monday, attacking some of his former Fox News colleagues, Rupert Murdoch, and anyone who suggests he is anti-semitic for opposing U.S. support to Israel for its conflict with Iran.
“You’re not going to convince me that the Iranian people are my enemy,” Carlson said. “Again, we’re going down this here—here’s who you are required to hate. It’s Orwell, man. I’m a free man. You’re not telling me who I have to hate. I’ll decide who I like and don’t like.”
Carlson criticized Trump last week for being “complicit” in Israel’s attack on Iran. He suggested the president betrayed swing-state voters who elected him in part because he promised to end U.S. involvement in wars abroad.
Carlson’s plea for Trump to “drop” support for Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, opened him up to intense criticism from his former colleagues, including the Fox News pundit Mark Levin.
A similar outcry came from many MAGA influencers, such as Laura Loomer, who has become an unofficial adviser to Trump in MAGA 2.0.
“Can we stop pretending like @TuckerCarlson is a true Trump supporter?” Loomer posted to X on Monday. “He has never publicly apologized for what he said about President Trump. He was fired by Fox News and then was terrified Trump would torpedo his career when the texts of him saying he ‘hates Trump’ came out... His fake it till you make it ‘support of Trump’ got his son a job working in the White House. This, of course, came after Tucker asked Hunter Biden to help his son get into college. Real story by the way. Look it up. Who cares about merit when you have Nepotism, Muslim investors, and Qatari cash flow? Ammiright?”
Levin wrote that Loomer’s screed was “well said.”
2 comments:
It shows yet again Trump is well out of his depth
We see now why when Trump 1.0 ordered his soldiers out of Syria he was disobeyed. Because this terrorist decapitation attempt was in the works. We also see why the deep state pulled that completely over the top terrorist attack on India. This was so India was slammed against the wall and too stunned and shaken to help Iran.
What’s going to happen is that Israel will eventually be occupied by some third party. Destroying the coasts with tidal waves and blaming an earthquake is an option. But in the end Israel is finished.
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