The Trump Administration has been very clear from the start that Iran is among the list of nations they’d very much like to pick a fight with, and today reiterated how unhappy they are with the P5+1 nuclear deal, though they were ultimately forced to concede that Iran is complying with it.
While grousing about what a “bad deal” they believe it was, Trump Administration officials accused Iran of having violated “the spirit” of the deal, offering absolutely no details on what that even means, or how the administration,which has repeatedly gone on record as not liking the deal in the first place, interprets that spirit.
It’s a problematic position, but mostly boils down to the Trump Administration being keen to have some excuse to “rip up” the nuclear deal as they’d long threatened to do, and being incredibly annoyed at the fact that they don’t have a pretext to do so.
This has officials publicly admitting that Iran is complying with the deal, and threatening new sanctions against them anyhow, because that compliance “won’t go unpunished.” This is a confusing position that’s likely to be a problem for the other P5+1 members, who already see the US, and not Iran as the weak link in the deal.
Even more puzzled that those partner nations however is Iran, whose Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was very public about how his government is having a heck of a time parsing the various mixed signals from the United States as any sort of coherent policy, let alone how to proscribe a policy for themselves that won’t lead to the US being furious at them.
That’s the problem when making deals with the US. The US can’t be trusts a bit.
The Americans are traitors to the other countries that signed the deal.
Typical American foreign policy, duplicitous actions over seas and lies domestically.
Oh that’s great! Iran complies with ALL international laws and treaties and they remain in the cross hairs of USA/Israeli warmongers. Meanwhile, Israel is in GROSS violation of numerous UN Resolutions and they get AT LEAST 3 billion per year in US aid money while Israel enjoys one of the best economies in the world. Meanwhile USA veterans sleep in the streets and are unable to get medical help for fighting Israel’s wars! The USA breaks its own laws(Symington Law) with giving military aid money to a nuclear nation and one that also funds and supports terrorism. Stand back and you will see that the REAL good guys on the planet now are certainly NOT the USA or any nation that continually tries to find a “justification” to overthrow the Iranian government and replace it with another Shah-like monster!
In military gamesmanship there is the concept of a “fleet in being”, a warfleet that does not leave port but forces an opponent to make costly preparations and accommodations for it nonetheless. After all, the threat is there and could make a very hot mess of things; further, such an opposing fleet could sally forth at any number of possible targets.
Extend the concept to ‘threat in being’ and that would be what Iran may be to Trump, based on his actions; its less about Iran just at the moment and more about gaming the Eurasians. The threat of war against Iran, directly or far more plausibly through Saudi Arabia, keeps Russia and China on their toes.
Since there is nothing solid to react against, they have to plan for every possible contingency. Putin’s judo-chess game of using an opponent’s momentum against itself suddenly has no leverage; the U.S. is not playing checkers anymore, or at least avoiding doing so more consistently (the difference between chess and checkers always seemed moot to neocons, although to get where they are, they must have, even accidentally, at some point).
Its probably no small coincidence that American gains in Syria have been complimented over the past year by repeated news stories speculating about a war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. How else could it be that little Qatar appears to be all that stands in the way of GCC unity, the necessary precondition (or is it?) for a Saudi war with Iran.
The threat of expanding the proxy war is more useful than actually expanding the war. Not exactly what antiwar Trumpians were hoping for, but better than hot war, and not directly threatening Russia but unfortunately very close too it. Looks like a compromise the neocons would find difficult to dispute, although they would find it as obnoxious as antiwar purists, albeit from opposite directions of principle.
Every 90 days President Trump must run the gauntlet of the Iran agreement.