Robert Satloff

The Hill

The only constant in President Trump’s Middle East policy is surprise.
The key question for friend and foe alike is how Trump might apply that principle to fateful talks with Iran over its nuclear program.

So far, the challenge of assessing U.S. strategy toward these talks is not that American officials have been tight-lipped, but rather that they have talked a lot, often in contradictory fashion. Even the president himself has sent mixed messages on Iran.

Sometimes Trump has focused on the narrow goal of preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon, meaning an agreement that may allow limited uranium enrichment by Iran, perhaps with stricter oversight or longer sunset provisions than the original Obama-era deal. At other times, Trump has endorsed the idea that the only airtight way to prevent Iran from sneaking out to a nuclear bomb is to insist that it enrich no uranium at all.

In Saudi Arabia, Trump weighed in on another debate — whether the talks should include restrictions on other aspects of Iran’s bad behavior. He told gleeful Arab allies that Tehran would have to end support for its terrorist proxies. At the same time, however, he seemed to take off the table his most potent threat — the use of America’s overpowering military force against a vulnerable Iran, when he said that failure to accept his offer would result in a renewal of the maximum pressure campaign from his first term.

These words likely triggered a sigh of relief among Iranian leaders, who fear an American attack but have long experience surviving under U.S. economic constraints.

In other words, Trump has been all things to all people, at least in public. Is there a way for him to achieve all these objectives in the negotiations? The answer is yes — but it is an interim deal, precisely the kind of deal that Iran wants and the kind that the U.S. should reject.

It is not a stretch of the imagination to think that Trump might announce “the greatest diplomatic win in history” in the form of an agreement with Iran that supposedly removes any possible danger of that country developing a nuclear bomb, even as Iran can enjoy the benefits of civilian nuclear energy. Such a deal would seemingly set the clock back on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, remove the imminent fear of a breakout and set a bold, broad agenda for future negotiations.

And indeed, it would be a great deal — but only for Iran.
That’s because such an interim deal would achieve all Iran’s core negotiating objectives — to avoid the disastrous outcomes of U.S. or Israeli military action against it, or a European decision to impose a “snapback” of United Nations sanctions. If Iran can achieve such a thing without having to surrender the precious right to enrich uranium, won from the Obama administration, its leaders will be very pleased.

Iran has no problem agreeing to discuss ending terrorism and its support for arming proxies, because it denies ever committing terrorism or arming proxies. And with the time that such an interim deal would buy, Iran would be able to repair its air defenses and otherwise improve its capabilities, so that the potential danger of a military attack diminishes.

Trump’s advisors might try to convince him that there is a shortcut that lets him claim a historic victory — ending any possibility of an Iran nuclear bomb — without demanding an end to Iran’s enrichment program or any real change in its regional behavior. They may also suggest, as Obama’s advisors did, that the enormous leverage the U.S. currently wields can’t get us all the way to that goal.

On both counts, those advisors would be wrong.

Now is the time to use our leverage to compel Iran to choose between a dark and painful future with enrichment and other subversive tools in its arsenal, or a hopeful future without them.

If any “interim” deal sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is.

Robert Satloff is the Segal Executive Director of the Washington Institute.