{"id":1310346,"date":"2019-05-15T22:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T04:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/peacevoice-column-baiting-iran\/"},"modified":"2019-05-15T22:20:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T04:20:00","slug":"peacevoice-column-baiting-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/peacevoice-column-baiting-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"PeaceVoice column: Baiting Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Ever since Donald Trump became president, regime change in Iran has been a prominent U.S. aim. Trump began by backing out of the nuclear deal and imposing harsh sanctions, setting the stage for a confrontational policy. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton followed Trump\u2019s lead, repeatedly denouncing Iran\u2019s leadership, calling for Iranians to rise up against it, and issuing vague warnings of U.S. punishment.<\/p>\n

This U.S. policy is absolutely inexcusable: It is aggressive and baseless, oblivious to diplomacy, and guaranteed to cause untold hardship and chaos for the people of the region.<\/p>\n

I have argued a number of times that Iran, not North Korea, is Trump\u2019s principal national security target. Trump\u2019s extraordinary patience with Kim Jong-un, and willingness to go to two summits with him that have gotten nowhere, can be understood as having given him time to focus on \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d on Iran. In his mind, the North Korea \u201cthreat\u201d has been deterred; let South Korea deal with it. U.S. interests in the Middle East are far more important anyway, and with Iran, Trump has the firm backing of two \u201cgreat friends\u201d: Saudi Arabia\u2019s criminal crown prince and Israel\u2019s newly reelected prime minister, who is as much a militaristic far-right hawk as Bolton and Pompeo. If war broke out, the Saudis and Israelis would be expected to provide on-the-ground personnel, permitting the U.S. to rely on air and naval power.<\/p>\n

What Trump is now doing is baiting Iran with war talk and deployments of overwhelming military power. Bolton, well known for having wanted to attack Iran years ago, and defeated in his attempts to lure Trump into using force against Venezuela, is looking for a way to sucker Tehran into creating a \u201cprovocation\u201d that would provide a pretext for a U.S. \u201ccounterattack.\u201d The public U.S. position is not credible: \u201cThe president has been clear, the United States does not seek military conflict with Iran, and he is open to talks with Iranian leadership,\u201d Garrett Marquis, a National Security Council spokesman, said Monday in an email. \u201cHowever, Iran\u2019s default option for 40 years has been violence, and we are ready to defend U.S. personnel and interests in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talks, really? Trump \u201copen to talks\u201d after tearing up a negotiated deal with Iran that took many years to conclude \u2014 a deal that is working? Defend U.S. personnel from what? Defend what interests, other than those of the Saudis and the Israelis who have been itching to eliminate the rule of Iran\u2019s Shia clergy for decades? If there is a \u201cdefault option,\u201d it is the U.S. preference under Trump for resolving international disputes by threats rather than engagement. The U.S. Congress, the European Union, Russia and China must act fast to isolate Trump and insist that their interests lie in continued trade with Iran and respect for its sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since Donald Trump became president, regime change in Iran has been a prominent U.S. aim. Trump began by backing out of the nuclear deal and imposing harsh sanctions, setting the stage for a confrontational policy. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton followed Trump\u2019s lead, repeatedly denouncing Iran\u2019s leadership, calling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1310346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 12:04:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}