It was Iran Day for the Trump administration at the United Nations General Assembly, and over at Foreign Policy, writers were wondering “Who might President Donald Trump cast as his villain?” Because every protagonist needs a villain.
The short answer, as if there were any question, is Iran. The longer answer is, Trump doesn’t need to cast Iran as the villain, since by its own actions it does a pretty good job of assuming the role all on its own.
Trump used his address to the U.N. General Assembly not only to stress the importance of national sovereignty (a concept many in the U.N. seem to struggle with), but to lay out his administration’s case against the Islamic Republic of Iran. He couldn’t resist the temptation to treat this address like a mini State of the Union, bragging of his domestic achievements (sometimes without merit, evoking laughter from the assembled world leaders). But one thing he said was undeniably true: “the United States is stronger, safer, and a richer country” than it was when he spoke before the U.N. last year.
Iran’s 40% increase in military spending
“Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction,” Trump said. “They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.” As I’ve pointed out repeatedly, one need look no further than Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen to see how true this is.
American sanctions are designed to rob Iran’s leaders of the funds necessary to continue to export violence across the region—and beyond—as well as curb the rapid growth in Iran’s spending on its own military, which Trump claimed has increased by 40% since the Iran Nuclear Deal was signed.
A 40% increase in military spending over the course of two years is unprecedented in the modern era, the Second World War being the exception that proves the rule. Even the massive Reagan defense build-up of the 1980s only represented a 30% increase in spending, spread over six years – not two. And the U.S. at the time was seeking to undo the “hollow Army” that followed the Vietnam era, and trying to maintain at least parity with the Soviet Union, the world’s only other superpower
Iran’s military spending is not for defense of its borders. Neither Iraq to the west, Afghanistan to the east, not Pakistan to the south are in any position to pose an invasion threat. And for all the administration’s tough talk (more on that in a moment), the U.S. poses no military threat to Iran as long as it plays nice with the other kids in the sandbox…something it has yet to prove it is capable of doing.
The only purpose for Iran’s increased military spending is to give it a greater capacity to exert itself throughout the region, and beyond. And that is a prospect that the U.S. simply cannot abide. For all the pearl-clutching over the fact that Saudi Arabia is dropping U.S.-made ordnance from U.S.-made aircraft in Yemen, the fact remains that this would not be necessary if Iran had not supported the Houthi rebels that overthrew the legitimate Yemeni government.
Iranian president Rouhani takes the stage
The audience may have laughed at Trump’s self-aggrandizement, but at least he had an audience. When Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani came to the podium, the room had largely cleared out. To the leaders and diplomats who remained, Rouhani tried to turn the tables and cast the U.S. as the villain. Just as no one was listening in the room, no one is listening outside of it, either.
What should have elicited laughter from the audience was Rouhani’s assertion that his government spent its first term on “deliberation and articulation of citizens’ rights.” Every protester calling the U.S. government a “fascist regime” should take a long, hard look at Iran. Amnesty International reports that Iran “heavily suppressed the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, as well as freedom of religion and belief, and imprisoned scores of individuals who voiced dissent.” The government tortures “with impunity” and “endorsed pervasive discrimination and violence based on gender, political opinion, religious belief, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”
In its 2018 world report, Human Rights Watch similarly reported that in the Iranian government executed “at least 476 individuals as of November 27, 2017, including five individuals who were sentenced to death for crimes they allegedly committed as children.”
State department and National Security Council tag-team against iran
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton were reinforcing Trump’s message a few blocks away at the United Against Nuclear Iran Summit. Pompeo’s speech previewed a 50-page report from State’s Iran Action Group that “documents the magnitude of the Islamic Republic’s destructive activities at home and abroad.” Ever brash, Bolton warned the Iranians that if they “cross” the U.S., there will be “hell to pay.”
Despite former CIA and FBI official Philip Mudd’s dismissal of this tough talk as “frat boy foreign policy” on CNN in the afternoon, there is a logic to it. True, the U.S. has been bogged-down in military operations in the Middle East for the last 17 years, and the country has little stomach for a new war. But Trump’s “strategic unpredictability” means the Iranians have to calculate the probability that he will attack, even in the absence of domestic support for such a course of action.
There’s simply no way for them to assess whether he’s serious or not. This is effective.
We’re a long way from a deal, but Trump’s rhetoric last year has brought North Korea back to the table. The administration now turns to Iran with a dual-pronged strategy to isolate Iran economically, and make it question how far it can continue to push the boundaries before the U.S. strikes. If that keeps the ayatollahs boxed-in and guessing, and starves the country of the money necessary to continue its nuclear ambitions, everyone wins.
Except the ayatollahs.
