Always hawkish on Iran, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R – SC) and John McCain (R – AZ) both made a big deal of opposing President-elect Donald Trump during his campaign, but now that he’s won, they’re trying to shoehorn him into the position of spoiler for the Iran nuclear deal.
The plan appears to be to portray Trump as having been on their side on Iran in the first place, with the expectation that he’ll go along with them instead of with his actual comments during the campaign. A flurry of new anti-Iran sanctions is the first goal, with the idea being for the US to overtly violate the already signed P5+1 nuclear deal.
It’s unlikely Trump will go along with the plan, however, both because he clearly doesn’t owe any political favors to Graham and McCain, and because despite his criticism of the Iran deal, he promised during the campaign to simply be as tough as possible in enforcing the pact.
In practice, the US can’t unilaterally derail the entire P5+1 nuclear deal, and violating it would be counterproductive, threatening to turn allies against the US, as well as dramatically weakening America’s ability to strictly police the deal.
Indeed, much of the expectation that a Trump win would spell the end of the nuclear deal was the product of the Clinton campaign, in an attempt to make him look reckless on the matter. Trump instead talked of renegotiation, which while likely unrealistic, is well short of the sort of fight McCain and Graham hope to pick.
If anything, reports that rest so heavily on comments from the senators may portend the start of a battle between the new president-elect, who styles himself the ultimate “outsider,” and two figures who stand as the arch typical pro-war insiders in the US Senate.
Neocons self identified.
I understand that Trump aims to re-negotiate that agreement. He will have to do that alone because the other signatories will not join him. Furthermore, in negotiations one cannot only demand. There must be an offer in return. It is unclear what Trump would offer Iran to come to a negotiation.
Of course he already knows that the controller is the IAEA which, until today, has not found any violations by Iran. And what does “strict enforcement” mean? I understand that it will have to go through the UN.
Meaning they want him to do anything Israel wants. And he will.
Bingo. Israel has been running our foreign policy for decades using our troops and money. Notice how no Israelis have had skin in the game? Not one of them have died while thousands of our troops have.
When are Americans going to wake up and quit joining the military on false pretenses?
Americans believe that the troops are defending our freedoms, but never bother to ask how terrorists could take them away from us. It was our government that took them.
See the picture below https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9e51c86a113fb846adab3cd909ac213381d18e2c3a6ff4ef52b1b0d0a7fd5d1.jpg
Good one!