"You say you want a RevolutionWell, you knowWe all wanna change the world. . .
You'd better free your mind instead"
The Beatles, "Revolution 1, 1968
Trump wants to leave Iran's rulers in place. Forget revolution.
Keep the police. Keep the public employees. Keep the government structure. Keep all but the very top military. Keep the autocracy.
Jim Stodder put this insight together for me. Jim is a college classmate. He left school for a while amid the anti-war disturbances of the era, then returned to complete college and then get his Ph.D. in economics from Yale. He taught international economics and securities regulation at Boston University.
Guest Post by Jim Stodder
Will Trump offer Iran the same kind of deal he’s offering Venezuela and now Cuba?
The deal is – “Go ahead and run your own affairs; repress your people however you want. Just stop messing with U.S. security and give us a piece of that oil and gas revenue.”
He’s already made this deal explicit with Venezuela, mentioned it to Cuba, and said he’d like to discuss it with Iran. All that democracy stuff was for his American audience. For getting what he wants, democracy in these countries would be a bug, not a feature.
There are many things in such a deal that would appeal to Trump:
* It would be the easiest and quickest resolution.
* It would therefore win the most political support in the U.S.
* It offers many avenues of enrichment for his friends and family.
* Even if it’s just a ploy or falls apart, the prospect of such a deal makes it less likely Iran retaliates with serious terrorism like a dirty bomb. (It still has enough nuclear expertise to do it, and it doesn’t take an ICBM.)
* Controlling Iran’s oil gives the U.S. leverage over China. The Economist magazine says China gets 4% of its crude from Venezuela and more than 10% from Iran.
There’s a counterargument to the last point, however. It is that making Iran less secure for China makes Russia more important as its supplier. China gets about 20% of its oil from Russia, via several oil pipelines and ships from Russia’s Far East. It also gets almost 40% of its natural gas imports from Russia via the Power of Siberia 1 pipeline and LNG ships, again through Russia’s East.
Against this growing importance of Russia, the fact remains that 40% of China’s crude oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran could choke off. On balance, I’d say that controlling Iran increases Trump’s leverage over China. And giving Russia more power has never been something about which Trump seems too concerned.
If I were advising Trump, I'd make the case. Given the direct benefits to him, he'd give it serious thought.
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Would the son of the leader the US killed want to play nice? How would Isreal feel about it as apparently they are deciding what we do in the Middle East?
ReplyDeleteSo wait, this is all just Trump cosplaying The Apprentice on the world stage, his twisted version of Shark Tank? I'm mortified!
ReplyDeleteIf the remnants of the ayatollah regime remain in power, but they stop screaming (and meaning) “death to America“ and “death to Israel” while pursuing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles, I’ll take it.
ReplyDeleteDemocracy and freedom for the Iranian people would be excellent, and I hope they achieve it with whatever help we and Israel can give them, but I am willing to take and be satisfied with what’s possible.
Right. Let's bomb the shit out of them - it's worked so well everywhere else we did it.
ReplyDeleteIt worked superlatively in World War II.
DeleteI couldn't agree more with the prime minister of Spain:
ReplyDelete"No to the collapse of an international law that protects us all, especially civilians. No to assuming that the world can only solve its problems through bombs. Let us not repeat the mistakes of the past. No to war."
We occupied Germany. Soldiers carrying rifles fought their way into it, my father among them. Bombing helped. But we were able to demand regime change because we committed millions of soldiers to that task, and 400,000 of them died. I am ok with Trump making the case to the American people that this is exactly what we need again, a new burst of patriotic engagementwith soldiers on the ground in Iran. He, like JFK, could make that case " Bear any burden...". Trump could try it. He owes us that effort if he expects to create an Iranian version of 1945 and 1946 Germany. He would fail, which is why he won't try. The public won't tolerate it, not from him.
ReplyDeleteEverything with Trump is transactional, and it’s always about his insatiable appetite for building his personal empire - which will be taken from him without his consent in due time of course.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile his personal behavior and celebration of at least six of the “seven deadly” sins is unleashing some of the most widespread moral decay in the modern history of our country. Or maybe since almost half the country was already so self-absorbed that he simply made their self idolatry and contempt for “the other” feel morally justified. Even superior.
The public won't tolerate it from him because we know he's just in it for the money.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to say that the overthrow of the murderous and bigoted Iranian Mullahs is not fully justified. I'm just saying that's not why Trump started the bombing. And as Peter has said here, bombing is unlikely to achieve such a liberation.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting split is that Israel *does* want to overthrow the Mullahs, and that's why most of Trump's personal picks for a new leader were killed in the first Israeli strikes. But this would take American troops, or else a vast Arab army led by Israel. That's not going to happen. More likely is prolonged chaos, or even the breakup of Iran, an ancient empire that is only about 60% Persian today.