Middle East Monitor:

by Jasim Al-Azzawi

As American naval forces assemble in the Indian Ocean, diplomats started negotiations in  Muscat on Friday; the region is standing at the precipice. President Trump, buoyed by his recent spectacular success in Venezuela, is entering these talks with Iran with demands that can only be described as maximalist. The conditions are so extreme that even the most seasoned diplomats are calling them a dead-on-arrival.

As reported by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, the United States has made five core demands of the Iranian government. The demands are the transfer of 400 kilograms of enriched uranium, the destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities, the destruction of its ballistic missile capability, the end of its missile program, and the end of its support of its allied forces in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. These are not opening demands; these are ultimatums issued under the guns of an approaching American naval Armada.

“I would say he should be very worried,” Trump told NBC News when asked about the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump’s candor is the candor of a man who is sure of the outcome.

Having recently forced the surrender of Venezuelan President Maduro, Trump is convinced he can repeat the same fantastic performance with the Iranian government. But Iran is not Venezuela. Iran has spent forty-five years preparing for this moment and may well thwart Trump’s ambitious plan. Seasoned observers are convinced that decapitation or extraction is impossible to achieve in Iran.

“Following the 12-day war, we have changed our military doctrine from defensive to offensive by adopting the policy of asymmetric warfare,” declared the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi, this week while visiting an IRGC missile facility. “We think only of victory. We have no fear of the enemy’s superficial might.” Such a defiant position may indicate that Iran is prepared to fight.

This change in military doctrine is the Iranian response to the devastating strikes it faced last June. Having lived through the period when President Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear program was obliterated, the Iranians have recalculated. They are now adopting a military doctrine that is all about swift and decisive action, “swift and decisive and would not conform to US calculations,” to quote Mousavi.

The most interesting demand made by President Trump is the one that Iran will find the hardest to comply with: the dismantling of the Iranian ballistic missile program. As noted by Bronwen Maddox, the Director and Chief Executive of Chatham House, “the missiles are the only shield that’s preventing its adversaries from toppling its regime. Without it, Iran will be bare and exposed to Israeli air power and US stealth bombers—and no Iranian government could survive that.”

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