Daily Times

Insanity prevailed. Trump did it again. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or Iran nuclear deal as is more commonly known is ripped apart by a man who was described by the ghost-writer of the book “The Art of the Deal” to be someone having no books at his residence or office. I am not sure how Trump got to fathom the Iran deal because what I am sure about is that he has no such reading stamina or even intelligence. The fact that he doesn’t have any books puts the leader of the free world below some of the leaders and dictators of third world countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to convince Trump to stay in the deal. “We signed it,” Mr Macron said, raising a finger for emphasis, “at the initiative of the United States. We signed it – both the United States and France. That is why we cannot say we should get rid of it like that.” A very elementary definition of a “rogue state” is a state that doesn’t abide by the international law and agreements it is a party to. The United States is not just a party to this deal but also conceived it.

After Trump’s withdrawal from the deal, the news stories in major American newspapers are basically that the Iran deal has blown the cover and exposed the split that exists inside the White House over how to deal with hostile governments including Iran. The splitisnot between opposite sides but rather between extensions of the same argument. One side wants hostile governments’ behaviour changed while the other side wants regime change. The former is considered a moderate position whose proponent is a man nicknamed “Mad Dog Mattis” because of his harsh views. One of the things he said is, “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.” That’s the moderate bloc. The regime change bloc has proponents like the National Security Advisor John Bolton who wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran”.

“Since 9/11, there has been a persisting policy tension over whether the US objective toward ‘rogue’ states should be regime change or behaviour change,” said Robert S. Litwak, senior vice president and director of international security studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The most disciplined journalism or as the deeply internalised concept of ‘responsible journalism’ doesn’t dare to venture into the forbidden territory of truth, where this clown show would be pointed out, where a simple question would become inevitable: what right does the United States have to change behaviours of other nations or their leaderships or how come the so-called split inside the White House doesn’t have the opposite argument of let us not turn the public opinion, which is referred to as the other super power, against us by this Whack-A-Mole strategy.

The split is not between opposite sides but rather between extensions of the same argument

Governments are supposed to undergo a behaviour change or a regime change owing to the wishes and aspirations of the citizens of that state. Last time I checked, Mattis and Bolton weren’t Iranian citizens or citizens of any other nation whose behaviour or regime the US might want to change. Much of the world would like to see a regime change or the behaviour change of the hostile government in the United States right now. Even a slight hint at such efforts would result in a brouhaha being erupted in the US. The latest Russian election interference is an illustration of that hypocrite mindset. The United States government has for decades engineered elections, facilitated coups, supported juntas, murdered dissidents of friendly dictators, kidnapped and imprisoned elected leaders. We do it to you, you don’t do it to us. Furthermore, the news stories do not have a single word about the US acting as a “rogue state”, which is a label the US has traditionally reserved for the usual suspects: Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela.

Interestingly, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis or “Mad Dog Mattis” wanted to stay in the deal not because international agreements should be honoured, or because as Macron said, “The United States is the one who invented this multilateralism.” But rather “Mad Dog Mattis” was concerned because he feared that a trans-Atlantic rift would weaken the NATO alliance. This is the state of the split in the White House. This is called a debate in the United States. Any tenth grader outside the United States would die laughing upon realising that this is what’s called a split.

Then comes ex-CIA chief and the newly appointed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He used to be a hard-line congressman from Kansas,but now he is fashioning himself as standing somewhere between Mattis and Bolton. The New York Times described him as someone who “seems determined to give diplomacy a fair shot.” Really? I wonder what else a top diplomat is supposed to do other than practising diplomacy. Did he really leave the CIA? Because giving diplomacy a fair shot sounds like a strategy of someone who is not fully a diplomat or doesn’t believe in diplomacy and chooses other options to achieve American goals.

The writer can be reached at imran.jan@gmail.com. Twitter @Imran_Jan

Published in Daily Times, May 19^th 2018.