There’s vastly too much hand-wringing over President Trump’s diplomacy and potential dealmaking with Iran, and it’s coming from friends and foes alike. I think it has more to do with America’s crumbling political infrastructure, than it does regarding the merits of Mr. Trump’s efforts.
First of all, the so-called memorandum of understanding is a nonbinding political document which simply outlines topics to be covered in the months ahead for some kind of final deal. Some people are taking parts of this MOU completely out of context for their own political gain. Let’s step back for a moment.
Over the past year, beginning with Operation Midnight Hammer and continuing through Epic Fury and Economic Fury, American and Israeli allied forces have completely decapitated the Iranian leadership, turned their nuclear capacity into rubble, totally buried their enriched uranium, destroyed their navy, destroyed their airforce, destroyed their radar, destroyed much of their missiles, and drones, and destroyed virtually their entire industrial base. Inflation could be running at more than 200 percent. Food and medicine for average civilians are not available. Currency is worthless. The economy essentially shuttered. In other words, Iran’s military and economic capabilities have been decimated. And people know this whether they criticize it or not. General Jack Keane observed that we’re not even seeing Iranian fast boats anymore in the Strait of Hormuz.
Meanwhile, the New York Post’s Miranda Devine writes that Iranian women at Tehran are now going around on motorcycles wearing skirts and without hijabs covering their hair, a crime that used to result in fines, jail, and savage beatings. Yet the morality police may be dead. Another sign that the radical Islamist Republic is crumbling from the inside.
Because of Mr. Trump’s courageous actions, the only president in the last 50 years to go after Iran forcibly and successfully. Its leadership has been decapitated, their military capabilities have been virtually eliminated, and their nuclear operations have been shut down. All reduced to rubble.
In short, their capacity for harm has essentially been eliminated for years to come with no boots on the ground. So, all this gives Mr. Trump the opening for diplomacy in the future. Why not try it? And that leads to at least a temporary suspension of the naval blockade to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and bring down oil prices to sustain the world economy.
It’s a risk worth taking. Indeed I don’t think there’s any risk at all. And not a single dime of money will reach Iran unless the final deal verifiably with inspectors ends their nuclear program and their enriched uranium. That’s the final deal, not some non-binding memo.
Even oil money will be put into an escrow account by the United States Treasury. And released only for buying the Iranian people food, farm, and medical help. Mr. Trump had this to say on the matter: “One of the things that we are doing also, and it came up last night, is money that’s being unfrozen is going to be used to buy food, and the food is going to be bought exclusively through the United States from our farmers. And corn, soybeans, all of the things they need are going to be bought from our farmers.”
That is quintessentially a Trumpian approach in deal making. The absolute key point is that the president, as he has said time and again, is going to end Iran’s nuclear capacity, period, full stop, with verification and inspection. Mr. Trump calls it nuclear honesty. And if Iran doesn’t play ball, then… We will go back to military, bombing, and the economic embargoes, and give them even more damage if that’s what it’s going to have to take.
Right now, Mr. Trump is making the right decisions. Opinion polls more and more are showing a favorable attitude towards his diplomacy and deal-making. So I say, let us stop this hand-wringing and let Mr. Trump do what he does best. Which is make a great deal for America.
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