Thursday evening, less than a day after Iranian air defenses shot down a U.S. surveillance drone over international waters, the Trump administration was preparing to launch an escalatory military strike in response.
Three separate targets were picked out, including the S-125 Neva/Pechora surface-to-air missile site that was allegedly used to down the unmanned aircraft. The ships and planes were in position, ready for the the president’s order.
Then President Trump had a last-minute change of heart. According to Trump’s own account, he decided to hold off after learning about the extent of the casualties from his generals. The intricacies of the decision are still a mystery; we may never fully know why Trump waited so long before reversing his order.
But the how is a lot less important than the ultimate result. The result was a demonstrable show of leadership from the president, who could have very well catered to the recommendations of his national security adviser and secretary of state— both of whom were pushing hard for retaliation, unconcerned or dismissive of the inevitable consequences.
The U.S. avoided a foreign-policy own goal Thursday night. The glass half-full take is that this entire episode will scare U.S. and Iranian leaders straight and force both to find an avenue towards de-escalation. Reports of Iran calling the Swiss ambassador in for discussions may signal a small willingness from Tehran to send a message to Washington that things have gotten dangerously out of hand. If the Trump administration were smart, it would take the message seriously and back away from an armed conflict that would undermine U.S. national security and prosperity—and be dangerous for our friends in the region.
Just as likely, however, is that last night’s drama could be the first round of more trouble. We aren’t out of the woods yet. More Iran pushback is inevitable if Trump doesn’t abandon his advisers’ maximum pressure campaign. Tanking Tehran’s economy and deploying more military forces into the Persian Gulf is resulting in increased Iranian aggression, the exact opposite of its promised outcome. This latest incident is only one of many more unless Washington changes course. Otherwise, the world may be reading the same story in the paper a week, month, or six months later.
The Trump administration’s goal has always been a better deal than President Barack Obama’s Iran deal. But Trump’s approach has not only failed to succeed, it may have closed the door to whatever progress was possible and terminated the pragmatic diplomacy we now need before it has had a chance to begin. This failure would be exponentially more horrific if we end up in a war with Iran.
Since maximum pressure, the plan devised after leaving the anti-nuclear Iran deal, Trump’s advisers have piled on sanctions with the goal of of bankrupting Iran, promising Tehran’s surrender. Foreign policy realists have predicted this will lead to a war before negotiations, and they have so far been proven right. The best hope now is to usher a way out of the tense situation we now find ourselves in. No nation, especially not Iran, would throw up the white flag in the face of such coercive measures — those backed into a corner tend to lash out, not lay down and surrender.
Never in the Islamic Republic’s 40-year history have the ayatollahs bowed down in servitude, even during more dire times when the country was under an international arms embargo and fighting a militarily superior Iraq. To assume Iran will bow down now is folly and plays into the hands of hardliners within the Iranian government who are resistant to dialogue with the U.S., thwarting genuine moderates among the Iranian citizenry.
Thursday night should serve as a lesson to U.S. policymakers: Maximum pressure is making an unnecessary conflict more likely. It’s past time for Washington to implement effective policies to achieve necessary ends — it should act responsibly, abandon the current policy, and be far more restrained and realistic in what it’s trying to accomplish.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a fellow at Defense Priorities.
