Iran and the Art of the Retread

The upcoming negotiations between the United States and Iran may be the only way to avoid military conflict between the two countries. President Donald Trump, assuming that recent large public anti-regime protests have weakened the Iranian government, has taken what he sees as an opportunity to pressure the Iranians over their nuclear and ballistic missile programs and assistance to foreign groups in the Middle East. He has moved air and naval forces to the region and may even think such threats or actions could collapse the regime.

Trump’s military intimidation could take a couple of different paths. A politician who has campaigned on staying out of foreign bogs seems to have become drunk with the potential of military action after the U.S. military’s successful snatch of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Yet Trump avoided a sustained military action on the ground that would have been required to change the socialist regime there. Instead, he seems to have been satisfied with the surviving regime providing him protection money in the form of revenues from a prospective rejuvenation of the now-outdated and decrepit Venezuelan oil industry.  (However, Trump may be out of office before such raw imperialism results in substantial payments.)

Thus, the first path the U.S. might follow in its threats or actions toward Iran is limited military strikes to coerce more concessions from Iran. The Iranians already seem willing to negotiate a deal similar to the one negotiated by Barack Obama in 2015 but loudly scrapped by the incoming Trump administration: Iran severely limits its enrichment of nuclear material and sends its stockpile of such material to a third country.

It would not be the first time that Trump has made threats and then settled for a “for-show” agreement similar to the one he could have gotten without the blustering. This outcome seems to be happening in the case of the recent Trump military threats against Greenland. Negotiations with Denmark and Greenland, a semi-autonomous region of that country, will likely arrive at a point similar to where Trump started before the threats: the ability to greatly expand the U.S. military presence on the island, with only a few legal niceties changed.

The same sleight of hand was used during the first Trump administration, after he had railed against the unfairness of the Bush I/Clinton North American Free Trade Agreement during the 2016 election campaign, only to scrap it and negotiate the only slightly modified U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) subsequently after taking office.

Thus, Trump’s threats, along with his desire for short-term, very public “wins,” might leave him satisfied with an updated, minimally modified version of Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. However, he would never admit that that was all he got.

Yet one factor looms in the background that has not been present in these other cases: Trump’s desire to be regarded as the greatest friend of Israel among U.S. presidents. In addition to the Iranians giving up their nuclear program, Israeli officials aim to limit Iran’s work on ballistic missiles that could strike their territory and its assistance to regional groups that could do the same: for example, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen. Also, Israel successfully persuaded Trump to attack Iran’s nuclear program in 2025, not only to try “obliterate” it (which obviously failed, as demonstrated by the continued negotiations over it) but also to take down Iranian air defenses to allow future attacks. Israel applauds any U.S. attacks on Iran, because they weaken its primary regional foe.

In war, however, the enemy has a vote. Iran’s nuclear program is designed primarily to deter Israel, as is its ballistic missile program and aid to regional allies. With its air defenses already denuded, Iran might be especially reluctant to give up these two deterrents in any negotiations.

The second path Trump could go down is heavier military strikes to try to take out remaining deeply buried Iranian nuclear facilities, or as a final decisive blow to attempt to collapse an already weakened regime. But why expend such firepower when Iran already seems ready to severely limit its nuclear program through negotiation? Also, perversely, heavy U.S. military strikes may actually strengthen the Iranian regime by inducing the well-known “rally-around-the-flag” effect, which increases popular support when a government is attacked by an outside enemy, especially a more powerful one.

Trump still seems to want to avoid foreign quagmires, so maybe he will take path number one: negotiating a revamped Obama-style nuclear deal with Iran, selling it as something shiny and new, and then calling it a day. In contrast, the more ambitious and riskier second path could lead to further unplanned escalation if the Iranians fail to capitulate or choose to go down fighting.