- Vintage Trump self-defeating foreign policy
Trump signing the waiver on Iran-specific sanctions may have given the nuclear deal another lese of life, but it’s a very short one. The White House has made it clear that it will not be done again, which gives the other powers that helped broker the deal – Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany – only 120 days to find some common ground with Washington or prepare for a political paralysis that will reverberate far beyond the Middle East. And it’s not just the politics that will come, once again, to a boil.
Immediately following the deal, and partial rollback of sanctions, EU companies were the first to beeline to Tehran for lucrative oil and business contracts. The sanctions had strangled the Iranian economy; contracting the local currency by more than 40pc. This squeeze, in large part, contributed to the collective financial discontent that culminated in street protests across the country recently. The long isolation, and freeze on oil sales, had brought its oil industry to ruin. And Europe has been salivating at the prospect of helping upgrade the infrastructure ahead of increased commerce. Some of those contracts, which include international institutions because a multilateral deal greenlighted them, will not go away just because one signatory has afterthoughts.
Trump’s diplomacy regarding the nuclear question – be it about North Korea or Iran – betrays a surprising degree of ignorance about the last decade. Not long ago George Bush included both countries in his ‘axis of evil’. Yet as the Obama years rolled on Washington began to realise – aided by partner nations in negotiations – that pushing these countries against the wall would actually increase the chances of hostility. The progress made with the Iranians were the first baby steps in not just nuclear weapons and security talks, but longer term engagements about deeper issues concerning the region. That is why it had the stamps of so many leading countries. Now, in typical fashion, Donald Trump threatens to drive a knife right through it. As the clock ticks on the nuclear deal, Washington risks making the Middle East far more volatile than the preceding years.