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Your guide to what Trump’s second term for Washington, business and world means
The writer is a senior consultant at Centerview Partners, the emeritus president of the Council for Foreign Relations and a former US graduate
So far, the initiative has been all Israel in the most recent conflict in the Middle East. It was Israel’s government that decided to go on an election war, a preventive attack on the nuclear threat issued by Iran. Israel has dominated the airspace over Iran, destroyed several nuclear-related facilities, killed several high-ranking military and nuclear officers and further deteriorated Iran’s immune system and continues to start his ability to start retaliation against Israel.
But after less than a week, the Israeli war effort may have reached its limit: Israel alone cannot reach his two main goals. The end of the Iranian nuclear program in the immediate times requires military skills that Israel does not have. And the history of the region emphatically indicates that it is not easy to bring about the change of regime with violence in Iran and may not bring about the desired result.
What happens next depends on the other two main protagonists in this conflict: the USA and Iran.
The US policy has so far been inconsistent. Washington was against Israeli military measures before it seemed when they seemed to accept and even seemed to claim recognition. It has made Israel available and contributed to defending it from retaliation, but has not joined Israeli offensive actions. It took a run in a diplomatic settlement, took five rounds with the Iranian officials and then gave up. President Donald Trump now demands that Iran are unconditional.
The Trump administration is currently discussing whether the United States should attack the underground Iranian nuclear facility in Fordow, which is only penetrated by large, heavy bunker bombs, which are not permitted by B-2 bombers that Israel does not have.
There are some relevant history here. In the early nineties, Bill Clinton’s administration considered to attack the nuclear program in North Korea when it was vulnerable and was still in the early stages. Ultimately, the United States was in charge and feared that such an attack could trigger a second Korean war that would lead to tens of thousands of thousands of South Korean and American victims. It was an understandable decision, but came with considerable long -term costs. Today North Korea has dozens of nuclear weapons together with the intercontinental ballistic rockets to deliver them to the US mainland.
The disadvantage of a US attack on Iran is not comparable because Iran cannot do much more against Israel than already. However, Iran could attack the 40,000 US armed forces that are stationed in the entire region. Tehran could also expand the war and threaten its recent improved relationships with the Gulf States and attack its Arab neighbors, with the process increasing global energy prices.
An American strike on Fordow would also weaken the international standard against preventive military attacks, which could then imitate Russia, China and North Korea. This would reduce America’s ability to effectively react to military challenges elsewhere. The United States would do a deeply unpopular Israeli Prime Minister, whose policy in Gaza and occupied West Bank has outraged a large part of the world. And it is anything but certain that a US attack will be successful if success is defined as the destruction of all remains of the Iranian nuclear program.
However, when Fordow survives, it is very likely that Iran will produce nuclear weapons sooner than later, which it will probably be considered essential if it does not deter the current crisis in Israel.
Israel alone could slow this result, but not prevent it. And if a nuclear armed Iran appears, this would be an existential threat to Israel and others. It would also be in a better position to resume the support of its regional proxies. And an Iranian nuclear weapon would also cause a number of other countries in the region to follow the example and put the Middle East on a dangerous hair trigger.
Without disadvantages there is no simple option. The best approach for Trump would be to give Iran a last chance to accept a diplomatic deal. Such a proposal would require that Iran agree to hand over its enriched uranium to the deposition of centrifuges and other known elements of his nuclear program and to agree to the open inspections of the international nuclear energy agency.
Such an offer would contain the facilitating of Iran through economic sanctions, a withdrawal of the US attack threat, a greater ceasefire and a some facial rescue mechanism in which Iran could be involved in a regional uranium-rich consortium that is bound by producing nuclear energy and not weapons.
Iran could accept it. Finally, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini reluctantly agreed to the end of the war with Iraq in 1988 to save the 1979 revolution, which the Islamic Republic launched. Khomeini compared this decision to drink poison.
The time is approaching quickly when his successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also has to swallow the poison.
