Trump Isolated on Iran as World Sees Confusion in U.S. Strategy
Trump Isolated on Iran as World Sees Confusion in U.S. Strategy
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. allies have rallied to Donald Trump’s side on many of his signature foreign policy initiatives, from North Korea to Venezuela. But as tensions surged this week over Iran, it became clear the American president was going it alone.
Efforts to ramp up the U.S. military presence in the Middle East -- expediting the deployment of a carrier battle group and sending a Patriot anti-missile battery and bomber squadron -- generated as much alarm among allies as did U.S. claims of escalating threats from Iran. Scattered statements of support for the U.S. were folded in with concern over uncertainty about where Trump’s strategy was headed.
“We don’t have the faintest idea what is going to happen because it doesn’t seem the U.S. actually knows,” said Tomas Valasek, director of Carnegie Europe and a former Slovak envoy to NATO. “Trump doesn’t seem to know what he wants.”
By week’s end, the president who repeatedly criticized the Obama administration for “telegraphing” its military intentions was openly trying to dial back tensions, saying he hopes there isn’t a conflict and repeating his interest in having direct talks with the leaders in Tehran. White House officials briefing reporters on Friday say they ’re “sitting by the phone” waiting for Iranian officials to call.
Waiting for a call -- outreach that would be politically difficult for Iranian leaders to make under U.S. sanctions and denunciations -- highlights a critical gap in relations between Tehran and Washington: the apparent lack of a diplomatic back channel.
Even at the peak of U.S.-North Korea tensions, there was a line of communication available through the United Nations to try to ease tensions. Middle East and European diplomats say they don’t believe any back channel now exists, though one official said Russia could be used as a go-between to de-escalate tensions.
Amid worries of war in the Persian Gulf, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was being welcomed on a trip to Asia that included stops in China, India and Japan. India is due to make a decision on future purchases of Iranian oil after ongoing elections conclude. In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated his government’s support for the nuclear deal with Iran that Trump quit last year.
In his first two years in office, Trump generated more support on other foreign policy hot spots even if it was sometimes reluctant. His tightening of sanctions on North Korea in 2017 won backing at the UN from Russia and China. His move this year to recognize Venezuela’s National Assembly leader Juan Guaido as the country’s president has been supported by more than 50 nations.
On Iran, however, analysts point to just two nations seen as enthusiastic about the rising tensions: Israel and Saudi Arabia, both longtime enemies of the Islamic Republic.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel stands “against Iranian aggression,” while Prince Khalid Bin Salman, the vice minister for defense and brother of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, said that drone attacks on a Saudi pipeline this week were “terrorist acts, ordered by the regime in Tehran, and carried out by the Houthis.” A Saudi newspaper on Thursday called for “surgical” U.S. strikes in retaliation against alleged threats from Iran, which has denied the charges.
Muted Support
Beyond those two nations, however, allied support has been muted.
Before he was publicly rebuked by U.S. and British officials, the U.K.’s top general in the American-led Operation Inherent Resolve, Chris Ghika, told reporters on Tuesday that there was no increased threat from Iran-backed forces in Iraq and Syria. And Spain this week withdrew a frigate that was part of an American-led combat fleet near the Persian Gulf waters.
Asked for comment, a senior Trump administration official said that allies have long joined the U.S. in condemning Iranian terrorism.
Some U.S. allies do see a rising threat from Iran, as the country’s leaders struggle to address accelerating inflation and a loss of export markets under U.S. sanctions. Three days after Secretary of State Michael Pompeo made a hastily arranged visit to see European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said on Twitter that “we share the same assessment of the heightened threat posed by Iran.”
But Hunt also said this week that the British government is “very worried about the risk of a conflict happening by accident with an escalation that is unintended,” warning against putting “Iran back on the path to re-nuclearization.” Germany’s deputy foreign minister called American actions a “distressful example of U.S. unilateralism.”
Brian Hook, Pompeo’s envoy for Iran, has insisted frequently that the U.S. isn’t isolated from its allies on Iran. “We agree on much more than we disagree,” he said Monday. “That continues to be the case. We share the same threat assessment.”
Nuclear Deal
One senior Western official disagreed with the notion that the U.S. is alone on Iran, saying that the message relayed to Pompeo was that Europe agrees with the U.S. on most of its grievances but that escalation should be avoided at all costs. The official said European capitals are leaning heavily on Tehran to de-escalate.
Looming over U.S.-European ties is continuing frustration over Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement that most nations say was helping to keep Tehran’s nuclear ambitions in check. Frustrated with the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions, Iranian officials this month gave European partners 60 days to deliver on promises of economic benefits from staying in the accord, or risk them disavowing some of its key provisions.
As Middle East tensions mounted, Trump began signaling that he’s open to talks. On Wednesday Iranian Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar told Bloomberg News that Tehran would be willing negotiate if the U.S. goes back to the 2015 deal. But Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has ruled out talks for now, saying “negotiations are like a poison as long as the U.S. remains the same way it is.”
In trying to reel in talk of imminent conflict, Trump suggested that uncertainty over U.S. intentions was part of his plan, saying on Twitter that “With all of the Fake and Made Up News out there, Iran can have no idea what is actually going on!” He later called any Iranian confusion “a good thing.”
That approach prompted a rebuke by Iran’s Zarif, who likes referring to Netanyahu and U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton as part of a “B-team” fomenting war.
“With the #B_Team doing one thing & @realDonaldTrump saying another thing, it is apparently the U.S. that ‘doesn’t know what to think,”’ Zarif wrote on Twitter.
--With assistance from Golnar Motevalli and Alyza Sebenius.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Wainer in New York at dwainer3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert
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