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Trump Ends The Nuclear Deal With Iran – What’s Next?
With a very belligerent speech Trump nixed the nuclear deal with Iran. He also lied a lot in it. Neither is a surprise. The United States only keeps agreements as long as they are to its short term advantage – just ask native Americans. One can never count on the U.S. to keep its word.
Trump will reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran because:
- The nuclear deal was negotiated by the Obama administration and thus must be bad;
- Israel wants to keep Iran as the boogeyman;
- the Zionists and right wing nuts in the U.S. want the U.S. to attack Iran;
- MAGA – Trump needs Iran as enemy of the Gulf states to sell more U.S. weapons.
Three European countries, Britain, France and Germany, were naive enough to think they could prevent this. The EU3 offered the U.S. to put additional sanctions on Iran for other pretended reason – ballistic missiles and the Iranian engagement in Syria. I was disgusted when I first read of the plan. It was obvious from the beginning that it would only discredit these countries AND fail.
Luckily Italy and some eastern European countries shot the effort down at the EU level. They were not willing to sacrifice their credibility over the issue. The nuclear agreement was signed and should be followed by all sides. They pointed out that there was no guarantee from Trump that any additional European effort would change his view.
Over the last weeks some last EU3 attempts to influence Trump were made. They were in vain:
On Friday, Pompeo organized a conference call with his three European counterparts. Sources who were briefed on the call told me Pompeo thanked the E3 for the efforts they had made since January to come up with a formula that will convince Trump not to pull out of the nuclear deal — but made it clear the President wants to take a different direction.
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After Trump's statement, the European powers want to issue a joint statement which will make it clear they are staying in the Iran deal in an attempt to prevent its collapse.
The sanctions Trump will reintroduce are not just limiting U.S. dealings with Iran, but will also penalize other countries. That will lead to a flurry of protective measures as at least some of those other countries will limit their exposure to U.S. rules and may even introduce counter sanctions:
“We are working on plans to protect the interests of European companies” Maja Kocijancic, EU spokeswoman for foreign affairs, told reporters in Brussel.
Iran will largely stick to the nuclear deal if the EU effectively defends it and does not hinder Iranian deals with European companies. If the EU fails to do so the nuclear agreement will be null and void. Iran will leave the deal. The neoliberal Rouhani government that agreed to the deal will fall and the conservatives will be back. They will defend Iran's sovereignty at all costs.
The U.S. seems to believe it can go back to the same position Obama had build up in the years before the nuclear deal. Iran was under UN sanctions and all countries, including China and Russia, held them up. The Iranian economy was in serious trouble. It needed to negotiate a way out. That situation will not come back.
U.S. credibility has been seriously damaged. Its soft power is gone. Its hard power has shown to be inadequate in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
China and Russia are both making huge deals with Iran and are now effectively its protectors. While they have no common ideology all three oppose a globalized world under exclusive "western" rules. They have the economic power, the population and resources to do so. Neither the U.S. nor Europe has come to terms with that.
Iran has not only new allies but gained in the Middle East because of U.S., Israeli and Saudi stupidity. The wars on Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen have all strengthened Iran's position while it largely kept largely out of them. The recent election in Lebanon went well for the 'resistance' camp. Within Lebanon Hizbullah can no longer be challenged. The upcoming elections in Iraq will result in another Iran-friendly government. The Syrian army is winning the war waged against the country. The U.S. position in Afghanistan is hopeless. Saudi Arabia is now in a fight with the UAE over the war on Yemen. The GCC spat with Qatar is still unsolved.
While Israel wants to keep Iran as a boogeyman to divert attention from its genocidal campaign against Palestinians, it does not want a large war. Hizbullah in Lebanon has enough missiles to make modern life in Israel untenable. A war on Iran could easily end up with Tel Aviv in flames.
There are some people in the Trump administration who will want to wage war on Iran. The Bush administration also had such plans. But any war gaming of a campaign against Iran ended badly for the U.S. and its allied states. The Gulf countries are extremely vulnerable. Their oil output could be shut down within days. That situation has not changed. The U.S. is now in a worse strategic position than it was after the invasion of Iraq. As long as somewhat sane people lead the Pentagon they will urge the White House not to launch such an endeavor.
The U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal is a huge mistake. Defense Secretary Mattis spoke against it. Will Trump make an even bigger mistake despite the opinion of his military advisors? Will he wage war on Iran?
Why are you judging Iran’s goverment and measuring it with western standards?
Since I am not good with words I will refer you to this old MoonofA thread
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2011/12/the-csm-drone-exclusive-does-not-make-sense.html?cid=6a00d8341c640e53ef01675ef83c57970b#comment-6a00d8341c640e53ef01675ef83c57970b
Where b himself asked this question(in the comments)
Off topic
A question you are likely more knowledgeable about than I am and that I wanted to ask for some time but not on RfI. Is an Ayatollah or a Marja in the sense of a Shia society, more of a “cleric” (in the “western” catholic sense), or more of a jurist i.e a Professor of legal science? Or maybe something else?
That is something I grapple with for quite some time and I find no good writing on it. Any hints to some sane reading on this will be welcome.
and this is the response
b @ 10
Is an Ayatollah or a Marja in the sense of a Shia society, more of a “cleric” (in the “western” catholic sense), or more of a jurist i.e a Professor of legal science? Or maybe something else?
Thanks for the welcoming words.
To answer your question, its “maybe something else”. The answer to your question is actually quite complex, as the understanding of the role of an Ayatollah entails understanding a different culture and civilization’s self-understanding of religion, which definition is in many elemental ways alien to the Western self-understanding of religion and the role that the priestly class plays in it. In other words, as your last question wisely foresaw, it is *not* the case where we have a series of pigeonholes, two of which are labeled “Jurist” and “Professor of Law”, and we simply have to decide which pigeonhole to place our Ayatollah in, or, say, place 40% of him in one hole, and 60% of him in another. That is not the case: in so far as the analogy obtains, the configuration of the woodwork is different.
So a proper answer would have to go into a comparative topology of characteristics and functions, which would take forever, and which I would probably not do a good job at. So my response will be necessarily selective rather than comprehensive.
One of the problems that our Prophet (with whom be peace) did away with or tried to do away with was the very existence of a priestly class as such. The successfulness of this aspect of his project is again another huge subject, which we will have to ignore. The important thing to understand for the purposes of this discussion is that the relationship between man and God in Islam is unmediated – neither by an individual cleric nor by a clerical class, nor yet by the organizational structure of that class of clerics, the Church. The relationship is direct and unmediated. In the Christian tradition (be it Catholic, Coptic, Nestorian, Greek, Russian or Armenian Orthodox, etc.) a duly ordained priest of a Church is required for an individual to establish a connection with God. There is a difference that is set in motion and jealously guarded by the Church and its priest between the vernacular language of the congregation and the liturgical tongue of the priesthood. That is why the Bible was always recited in Latin in Europe – so that only the initiate could understand it, and the layman would be dependent on the priest’s cryptanalysis. It took a clever fellow by the name of Martin Luther to translate the Bible into the vernacular and to say that the Vatican was *not* needed for man to have a relationship with God. Better late than never, I guess.
So that is one important distinction, which is an element in the answer to the question you raised. Another one is the whole issue of the role of religion in questions of state. I do not want to use the hackneyed “separation of Church and State” refrain, as there is no such thing as a “Church” in Islam to separate from the State (or a Mosque or Masjid endowed with an hierarchy that enjoys exclusive authority). This question is itself complicated by the differences in approach to the issue by various sub-elements of the nascent community of Moslems and their respective spirituo-temporal textures and sensibilities – modalities which later crystallized into Sunnite, Shi’ite and Kharijite, among others, each of which again splintered. The Sunnite encounter with this issue was basically to accept the authority of whomever happened to seize the reins of power and managed to hold on to them, whereas the shi’ite encounter was very different and involved belief in a cycle of 12 divinely appointed Guides or Imams, the Cycle of Imamate which followed the Cycle of Prophecy. This distinction bears on the question you asked as the Ayatollahs are in a sense successors to the Imams (the last of which is in an occulted state in an isthmus or in the interstices between this world and the next), the Greater Occultation (circa 941 CE) having ushered in a *third* cycle, the Cycle of Wilaaya(t) or Guardianship. Imam Khomeini’s actualization or institutionalization of the Wilaaya(t) or Guardianship of the Jurisconsult (faqih, or Ayatollahs, if you will) adds yet another kink into this cauldron, as it formalizes and institutionalizes this Cycle as *necessary* (in the absence of the Imam of the Age), and as such, introduces a certain mediation in that relationship.
I’m sorry to have given you a completely inadequate answer. If all I have managed to do is to give you a glimpse into a whole other world, than I will have to settle for that. It is a beautiful world, and one that requires and indeed demands that many volumes be written on it. And good work has been done and continues to be done, but alas I am not able to point you to a single source, an “Ayatollah for Dummies” as it were (with due respect!).
If you are interested, though, there are good books of general information, including The Vision of Islam by Murata and Chittick; Shi’a Islam by Momen; (The Tabatabai book massoud referred to is authoritative and is greatly aided by the excellent translation and annotation of Seyyed Hossain Nasr, but is ultimately sterile as it is written by a Shi’a scholar who was not in my opinion able to address a Western audience in anything remotely resembling a satisfactory way); No God but God by Aslan; The Formative Period of Islamic Thought by Watt; Conflicts in Islamic Jurisprudence by Coulson; and the mighty and magisterial The Succession to Muhammad by Madelung.
Wa’llahu ‘alam (And God knows [best]).
Posted by: Unknown Unknowns | Dec 19, 2011 12:08:00 AM | 30
b @ 12 Ct’d:
So I forgot to draw the mini-conclusion that our little preamble will enable us to draw, namely, that becuase there is no mediation in Islam, the Ayatollah is closer to the Doctor of Law than to the Priest, but because of the all-embracing role of religion in Shi’a Islam (and Islam generally, actually), the Ayatollah is closer to the Priest and the traditional (medieval) priest at that, in that his opinions bear on every aspect of life, albeit in a consulting capacity borne out of an expertise deriving from specialization rather than because of a special position he occupies because of his role as cleric or becuase of his position in a clerical organizational or institutional structure.
Posted by: Unknown Unknowns | Dec 19, 2011 3:28:44 AM | 31
For more advanced reading in the English language, I recommend Amir-Moezzi’s “The Divine Guide in Shi’a Islam” as well as the works of Henri Corbin, especially his “Avicenna and the Visionary Recital” (both these works are translated from the original French).
And just FYI, an Ayatollah (literally = ‘sign of God [on Earth]) is always a marja’ but a marja’ (which literally means source or reference point and is short for marja’-i taqlid = Source of Emmulation) is not necessarily an ayatollah. One can reach the station (maqaam) of marja’iat (of being a source of reference on religious matters) without having reached the (higher) station of Ayatollah. One becomes a marja’ once he (or she) passes the level of Khoruj and thus becomes a mojtahid (someone who is able to apply him or herself to the sources of law (Koran, hadith, etc.) and derive new laws and rulings based on those sources and based on his or her ijtihad (personal legal endeavour), which entails such things as ‘aql (reason), qiyas (analogical reasoning), ‘adl (justice) and in the case of Sunnite ijtihad, ijma’ (consensus), etc.
Posted by: Unknown Unknowns | Dec 19, 2011 3:59:57 AM | 32
b’s response
@UU – thanks, that helped – still lots of stuff I’d like to read and will probably never get to.
@somebody – for a catholic the pope MUST be followed, Sistani in one of several marjas and a shia believer can choose to follow any of them (or none). That’s why I think the comparison is not fitting.
Posted by: b | Dec 19, 2011 7:39:28 AM | 34
end of quote
So as you can see you dont even have the proper mindset or parameters to begin to understand what Shia school of thought or what Iran’s goverment is based on.
Posted by: zaky | May 9 2018 18:55 utc | 230
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