Will he or won’t he?
For weeks, Washington, Middle East capitals, and indeed many points beyond have been gripped with speculation over whether President Donald Trump would attack Iran – a move many analysts and some advisers in Mr. Trump’s inner circle have warned could spark a broader war.
At the same time, another question has remained largely unanswered concerning the president’s potential recourse to a military intervention against the Islamic Republic: Why would he?
Why We Wrote This
President Donald Trump’s brief mention of Iran in his State of the Union address was still short of a complete argument for how and why striking Iran, which would risk a wider Middle East conflict, would further U.S. interests.
Now, as indirect talks between the United States and Iran are set to resume in Geneva on Thursday, against the backdrop of the largest U.S. armada assembled in the Middle East since the Iraq War, the answer to the “why” question remains incomplete at best.
Mr. Trump’s recent comments on Iran and those of some of his advisers have suggested four different objectives that could be motivating U.S. policy, numerous U.S.-Iran analysts say. Chief among them is Iran’s nuclear program and eliminating any possibility of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Other objectives the president is considering, comments suggest, are taking out Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and production capabilities; riding to the rescue of Iran’s anti-regime protesters, as Mr. Trump pledged in January; weakening Iran’s support for its regional proxies; and, lastly, some form of regime change.
The president dedicated only a few lines of his State of the Union address Tuesday to Iran, but he did touch on some of these potential goals underpinning his next steps.
Majid Asgaripour/West Asia News Agency
“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy,” Mr. Trump said, “but I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terrorism to have a nuclear weapon. Can’t let that happen.”
Referring to what he’s looking for in the ongoing negotiations, he said, “We haven’t heard the secret words: ‘We [Iran] will never have a nuclear weapon.’”
Touching on other factors that could be driving administration deliberations, the president cited his disdain for a regime “that has killed at least 32,000 protesters,” as well as a missile stockpile “that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas.” (Rights groups monitoring the recent Iranian unrest say the number of dead confirmed so far is at least 7,000, which would still make the crackdown the regime’s deadliest.)
Emboldened, yet hesitating
For many critics and analysts, that hardly explains why the United States would risk a broader and unpredictable war in the Middle East.
In the absence of a clear case for how striking Iran would further U.S. interests, some analysts say the president appears to be emboldened to take military action by what he has characterized as recent successes. First, the airstrikes last June against Iranian nuclear facilities, and then the January special-forces operation that seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
“Trump’s the guy in the casino who’s on a roll. He’s just won a bunch of money at the Venezuela craps table, and he hasn’t forgotten his Iran winnings from June,” says Rosemary Kelanic, an expert in energy security and U.S. grand strategy at Defense Priorities, a Washington think tank advocating restraint in U.S. foreign policy.
“Now he’s at the table again,” she adds, “with a lot of chips and some congressional hawks and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu whispering in his ear that Iran is weak so it’s his opportunity to go big.”
She says the lack of clarity on just what President Trump’s objectives are can make getting the deal he says he prefers more difficult. “If the Iranians are unclear if Trump really wants a deal, but suspect he might be bent on regime change, then there’s no incentive for Iran to go for concessions,” she says.
Others say the president appears to be leaning toward a limited military strike that is beyond a token signal but short of full regime change. Nuclear sites would be targeted again, but this time missile infrastructure and government power centers as well, to convince the Iranians to get serious about negotiations. Mr. Trump confirmed last week he is indeed considering such an option.
“What President Trump has on the table seems to be a ‘decapitation strike’ that would be designed to target a range of significant military infrastructure and Iran’s leadership so that the U.S. can start negotiating seriously in a new reality and with a new successor leadership,” says Arash Reisinezhad, a visiting assistant professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School in Medford, Mass.
“So what I see is a strategy of three steps,” he says, adding, “The negotiations that are taking place, then the decapitation strikes, and then a return to serious negotiations” with a successor set of Iranian powers.
“Iran gets a vote”
Such an approach might be “more realistic than complete regime change,” Dr. Reisinezhad says, “but it would still be very risky – which explains why Mr. Trump is hesitating.”
He says Iran could be expected to immediately strike back at U.S. interests in the region, including military bases, energy installations, and Israel.
Others agree the “strike to negotiate” option is fraught with danger.
“The theory that a round of targeted strikes can lead to concessions from Iran is completely wrong,” says Dr. Kelanic. “Iran gets a vote in this, and they’ve signaled every way they can that they are going to respond hard to any attacks. If Trump opts for any attack,” she adds, “any deal is going to be off the table.”
Some analysts suspect that Mr. Trump’s overriding motivation is his assurances to the American public as far back as his 2016 presidential campaign that he could deliver a much better deal with Iran than President Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal – which he withdrew from in 2018. Going to war with Iran instead would sully his self-image as a greater dealmaker than any previous president, they say.
For Dr. Reisinezhad, an unpredictable military engagement with Iran also risks seriously undermining the administration’s broader national security interests, as laid out in last month’s National Security Strategy.
“The U.S. under this administration has just said it’s most important focus should be Taiwan and the South China Sea, as well as the Western Hemisphere,” he says. “If the U.S. gets stuck in the Middle East and has to turn away from Asia,” he adds, “that’s going to be good for China, and for Russia.”
