Month: May 2019
Advantage Iran
President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo are both begging for talks with Iran and have been for months. Now they are ratcheting up the pressure by deploying a carrier battle group (which had been slated to head for the Gulf a bit later) and toughening sanctions against Iran’s oil and metals industries. Washington’s theory of the case is that more pain will bring Tehran to its senses, maybe even to its knees.
Meanwhile Iran is heading in the opposite direction. It is planning to begin a phased withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that the US left a year ago. Without the economic benefits of the deal, there is little reason for Tehran to stick with it. The harder-line voices there never liked the constraints on the nuclear program and view the US withdrawal from the agreement as an opportunity, not a disincentive. It proves the hardliners correct in their assertion that the Americans can’t be trusted and gives them momentum in seeking to restart the nuclear weapons program that the JCPOA rolled back and suspended.
Washington and Tehran are engaged in a classic turn toward what conflict management folks call their “Best Alternatives to a Negotiated Solution” (BATNAs). Each is trying to demonstrate that it has a better one. The escalation is of course dangerous, but it could eventually lead towards a mutual recognition that the situation is ripe for a negotiation. If, as both assert, neither wants to go to war, which could have catastrophic outcomes, the escalation might generate the incentive each side needs to negotiate.
It is not clear however that both sides do in fact want to avoid war. The Americans are simply unpredictable: National Security Advisor Bolton has long advocated war to end Iran’s nuclear program, but President Trump seems reluctant and in any event is unreliable. The Iranians also have a divided command structure, but in the end it will be the Supreme Leader who decides whether to go to war, likely by attacking Americans in Iraq or Syria and possibly even using terrorist sleeper cells in the US. Pompeo and other American officials have warned as much and claimed that is why they are accelerating the deployment of the carrier battle group. Quid pro quo strikes could escalate quickly.
If I had to guess, Trump will flinch before the Supreme Leader does. A new war in the Middle East isn’t what he should want to try to sell to the American people. It would disrupt a growing economy and belie the President’s many declarations of intent to leave fighting in the Middle East to others. Even a flim-flam man knows his limits. Iran is a country of 81 million people long hardened by war (with Iraq) and sanctions. While discontent is rife, the Supreme Leader can be certain that the Americans won’t invade. A carrier battle group, plus some bombers, does not an invasion make. A cruise missile strike on elements of the nuclear program would set it back but free Iran from any JCPOA constraints.
The Americans served first by withdrawing from the JCPOA and reimposing sanctions without lining up multilateral support. The Iranians are responding with their own phased drawdown from their commitments under the agreement, while trying not to drive either the Europeans or the Chinese into the arms of the Americans. Some sort of mutual accommodation could still be possible, but if this were a tennis match, the score would be “ad out.”
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Over the edge
Early in the Trump administration I recognized it as a radical one. By now, we can all see that there is little conservative about Trump: he has exploded the Federal deficit, attacked Federal law enforcement, appointed judges who want to reverse the decision that allowed legal abortion in the US, and avoided criticism of right-wing and racist hate groups.
In foreign policy the Trump Administration has also been radical: it supported an attempted seizure of power (I won’t call it a coup because it is arguable that Guaido is the legitimate president) in Venezuela, it has unilaterally reimposed sanctions on Iran without enlisting the support of European or Asian allies, it has supported Israel’s rejection of the two-state solution with the Palestinians, and the President himself has supported a military assault on Tripoli by a Benghazi-based warlord.
But there is another radical edge of this Administration: willingness to skirt the law. That is the main conclusion of Special Counsel Mueller’s report. He found no evidence of active cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia, but lots of evidence that the campaign welcomed Russian interference in favor of candidate Trump. He also found lots of evidence of obstruction of justice, but declined to make a formal finding against a sitting president. Well before Mueller’s report we knew that the President was at or beyond the edge on accepting payments from foreign governments, not to mention the manifold charges of corrupt behavior against his cabinet officials, several of whom have resigned as a result.
The aborted nominations of Herman Cain and Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve tell us more about this radical edge. Neither is even remotely qualified for the position. Both had a graveyard’s worth of skeletons in their closets. That is the sort of person Trump likes. These are people who can be relied upon to be 100% loyal and not to make noise about the Administration malfeasance. They can be blackmailed and won’t rebel. Both proved to be beyond the pale for Republicans in the Senate, but Trump had no problem with proposing such radically unqualified candidates.
Now, as I was writing this post, Trump called Russian President Putin, did not object to Russian interference in the 2016 election, and agreed with Putin that the whole thing was a hoax, contradicting both the Mueller report and the consensus of US intelligence agencies. Trump also believed Putin when he denied being interested in doing anything but positive things in Venezuela, where Russia has been backing President Maduro to the hilt while the US is trying to oust him. Trump’s refusal to back American government intelligence and policy is as close to disloyalty to the United States as was Trump’s appearance with Putin in Helsinki. Judge for yourself:
It’s over the edge for me.
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Venezuela is no Grenada
One thing seems clear: it’s not over yet in Venezuela. The Americans appear to have anticipated that the military would break with Nicolás Maduro and support Juan Guaidó’s claim to the presidency. That didn’t happen yesterday, when it was supposed to. Nor did Maduro leave the country, as Secretary of State Pompeo thought he would. John Bolton this morning is claiming that Maduro surrounded “by scorpions in a bottle,” but they haven’t bitten yet.
In the meanwhile, yesterday’s demonstrations departed at least in part from non-violence. This is both comprehensible and mistaken. Comprehensible because the police, army, and paramilitaries used violence against the demonstrators. Responding in self-defense is certainly justifiable. But it is also mistaken because violence will limit the number of people who take to the street today and also make it more difficult for the security forces to come over to the side of the demonstrators. If attacked, they will defend themselves.
The Trump Administration meanwhile is still threatening a military intervention as well as sanctions against Cuba for its support of Maduro. A military intervention would be nuts. There are no signs of preparation for it. Venezuela is a country of about 30 million people even after a couple of million have fled. A significant percentage of those are loyal to Maduro, in addition to at least part of the 2.8-million man army. Even in its current dilapidated state, that army would not welcome the US Marines with open arms. The Cubans and Russians would also be a problem. Venezuela is no Grenada, which wasn’t entirely a picnic.
A coup is of course still possible, but that won’t solve Caracas’ problems. The Venezuelan army leadership is deeply corrupted, including with drug trafficking and other organized crime activities. Armies don’t seize power in order to hand it to civilian leaders, but rather to protect themselves. A chat with Egypt’s President Sisi should be enough to convince anyone of that. The Americans will figure military rule is better than Maduro, but
Guaidó should be thinking twice before collaborating in a military takeover. He needs to the military to support him, not to seize power for itself.
The next 48 hours or so may be decisive. If Maduro can survive for that long, he has a chance of re-consolidating power. If he trembles even slightly, he could end up history. He has far more at stake than the Americans, which means he is likely to hold on tight, using brutal force if need be to show his determination. But the army has a lot at stake too. As in Algeria and Sudan, there are really three contenders for power, not just two. And Guaidó doesn’t look like the strongest of them today.
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