Iran’s Many Faces

Iran is trying to assassinate Donald Trump. Iran is seeking nuclear talks. Israel may attack Iran in a few hours.

Iran has been an all-purpose villain in the media for a long time. But it was once a friend of the United States and Israel. Along with Europe, China, and Russia, we negotiated one of the most comprehensive agreements on control of nuclear activities.

Iran is a religious dictatorship of the kind that Republicans envy, but it is even more of a villain to them. Iran now has a program to assassinate Donald Trump in retaliation for his killing of  Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020. One might speculate that Trump’s statements to encourage Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities also play into Iran’s hostility.

Iran has a new president. The president has limited power under the Grand Ayahtollah, but he has appointed members of his cabinet who were active in the negotiation of the JCPOA, the nuclear deal that Trump withdrew from. At the United Nations September General Assembly, President Masoud Pezeshkian offered to re-open nuclear negotiations with the other countries of the JCPOA. Iran uses its nuclear program to increase bargaining stakes, but it has never built a nuclear weapon.

Iran has several factions. The IRGC, which is pushing Trump’s assassination, is the most hostile. The current president represents those who would improve relations with the West. Iran sponsors Hezbollah, Israel’s target in Lebanon.

If the US were not so fragmented itself, we could employ a strategy of splitting the factions, distributing recognition and interaction in a way to favor the more peaceful and disempower the hostile. And if we didn’t have Israel insisting that the nuclear facilities be bombed. A few US proponents would also bomb those faciliites.

I’ll repeat what I’ve said perhaps a thousand times. Iran has placed its nuclear facilities in the middle of cities or deep underground. Both will be difficult to destroy. Sites we don’t know about will remain. And bombing will not destroy Iran’s knowledge base, which is fully capable of supporting a nuclear weapons program. The fact that Iran has had this knowledge base since 2003 and has not built a weapon indicates that building a weapon is not Iran’s primary goal.

The agitation about bombing Iran has not yet convinced them to build a nuclear weapon, but bombing them will assure that they will rebuild their capability to do that.

Iran held to its obligations under the JCPOA. They would probably go back to that situation if a new agreement could be peacefully negotiated.

Plotting to assassinate Donald Trump comes from a different part of the government. Negotiations in any area, including the nuclear area, would build relations so that this threat might be removed.

We are in the worst possible situation from which to begin negotiations now. The bright spot is Iran’s initiative. We’re here thanks to Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu.