An irony of nationalism gives Iran bargaining power
There is a special kind of irony that attends the current situation with Iran.
President Donald Trump, who has called himself a "nationalist," does not seem to understand the underlying power of nationalism or that it can burn strongly in the hearts of the citizens of other nations.
The president has made a calculation that his "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions against Iran and its leaders is sufficient to get what he wants … though it is not particularly clear what the president wants. Yes, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined a list of demands to end the sanctions, but no one thought getting all of them was terribly realistic.
Let there be no doubt. Those sanctions have hurt Iran, but they have also allowed a corrupt and incompetent regime to point the finger at the Great Satan and blame the United States for Iran's economic woes.
Moreover, Iranian leaders have called the sanctions an act of economic warfare and nations at war tend to rally around nationalistic feelings.
Yes, the United States is much more powerful than Iran and that must of have been central to the president's calculations, but there are things that are harder to quantify, including the staying power of a nation that perceives itself under siege.
Moreover, it is one thing to have great power, but there are restraints on that power - economic, political, human - that always come into play.
The leaders in Iran no doubt read history. They know that 58,220 deaths in Vietnam caused Americans to sue for peace. They know that 241 dead servicemen in Lebanon caused America to withdraw. They also know that while Saudi Arabia has the third-largest defense budget in the world, it only has about 127,000 men under arms, compared with Iran's estimated 12.6 million.
They also know that this president has been working to withdraw American forces from the world and that he has publicly indicated he has no desire for a new conflict in the Middle East. Some recent polling suggests that the American people don't want to spend one American life to defend Saudi Arabia.
Does the president think he has more leverage than he actually does?
The critics of the Iran nuclear deal (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) essentially believed the deal gave away too much, but even former Defense Secretary James Mattis, who opposed the deal, had to admit that "it was working," as he reiterated in his recent appearance in Chicago.
In the formation of foreign policy, there is a responsibility to game out the consequences of our actions. If we withdraw from the deal, what do the Iranians do? What do the other partners to the deal - Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China - do? Will they support us? Will they undermine us? If Iran starts to violate the deal, what do we do?
As America gets ready to bring in its fourth national security adviser in three years, this will be at the top of his inbox. The adviser's job is to be a coordinator and to bring all the stakeholders - Defense, State, Intelligence, Energy, etc. - together and create a series of recommendations and options for the president. That is not the role that the former national security adviser, John Bolton, played. He was an advocate for his own position.
As I have argued, the JCPOA should always have been seen as a first step. That agreement should have been succeeded by another agreement as arms control agreements with the then-Soviet Union were built one upon the other - SALT I, SALT II, START, etc.
What forced Iran to the table before were not the sanctions, but the collective power of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. There was no one Iran could play off against another. It was isolated. That is not true now.
Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.