Dangerous Consequences Await Trump’s Withdrawal from Iran Nuclear Deal

Many observers fear that the U.S. withdrawal will strengthen hardliners inside Iran and provoke a new nuclear arms race and conflicts across the Middle East. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Gareth Porter, independent investigative journalist and author of the book “Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.” Here, Porter discusses the dangerous consequences that could result from President Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Iran nuclear agreement.

GARETH PORTER: Just to start with the dire consequences for the Iranian side, particularly if you consider the Iranian side to be the government of President Rouhani. This is a government that, although it is clearly not a single faction controlling the policy completely, represents a point of view on Iranian foreign policy, which is still quite favorable to integration of Iran into the global economic system as well as into a set of relationships with Western countries including the United States, and also of course, key European states. That has been an aim of Iranian foreign policy for many years and this government is in line with that aim completely. But it is under great pressure at home from much more powerful nationalist political views and political factions, which have been extremely critical of the agreement with the United States to begin with. So, from the point of view of the Iranian government, this is a big blow not only to their policy, but also to their political position within the Iranian political system.

I think that it means that they will be under increasing pressure to take a much harder line, clearly, and will face political consequences at home from their point of view if they don’t take a much harder line –meaning that they respond with some fairly strong changes in their policy toward the nuclear program, at the very least resuming the enrichment program in some fashion. And I would suspect at least having some nominal enrichment at a higher level, if only very limited to show that they are not going to be limited in that regard. So I think that is the very least that we can expect from, from Iran in terms of response to this.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Gareth Porter, with Trump’s withdrawal from this international nuclear accord, will other nations that signed the accord be able to hold it together or does the whole thing fall apart?

GARETH PORTER: No, I don’t think that the European states, the UK, Germany and France will be able to hold it together. I think they’ve been trying mightily, striving mightily to do that in their contacts with Iran, of course, but also logically necessarily in their contacts with the Trump administration, with Trump himself. But I think the lesson of the past few months is that there is no way to square the circle. There’s no way that the Europeans can continue to have a deal with Iran in the absence of a commitment by the United States to do this. And in part that’s because the United States wields this economic power over Europe and makes it very difficult for Europeans to continue to have a deal with Iran that would be sufficiently rewarding to Iran, so that Iran has a real incentive to continue in some way with an agreement that is not with the United States but only with Europe.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Gareth, I wanted to ask you this: Explain to our audience the kind of end game is that Trump’s newly appointed national security advisor John Bolton and newly confirmed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. What do they have in mind in terms of an end game with Iran if this accord no longer exists? It seems that with all the saber rattling we’ve heard from these individuals and Donald Trump himself, that they’re not too subtle about the idea that they’d like to go to war with Iran. At least that’s what it appears on the surface. What are your thoughts?

GARETH PORTER: Well, I can’t disagree fundamentally with that analysis. I think that if we go back and look at what John Bolton’s history is on Iran when he was in a policy-making position in the George W. Bush administration. From 2001 to 2005, he was very deeply involved in a scheme to try to wreck any possibility of an international agreement that would prevent or would make it more difficult politically, let’s put it that way, for the Bush administration and of course, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, to plan for a use of military force against Iran. I have no doubt that Bolton really means what he says. He’s been calling for bombing Iran for many years as a commentator on Fox News. And every time I’ve seen him talk about Iran over the years, he always says, “Yes, we should bomb Iran.” So, I think that’s what we’re up against here with the Trump administration. I must say that we have to view the next two-and-a-half years of the Trump administration as one of really grave danger for world peace and for the United States.