No Exit Ramps

Despite pressure to develop an exit strategy in the Middle East, hawks remain firmly in the driver's seat

As I approach a short hiatus from writing for some well-needed overseas travel, I will present to you one last newsletter before my departure, one encompassing, yet again, the state of the conflict in the Middle East and the US government’s difficult choices ahead. I will be thus taking a weekslong hiatus from publishing until June when I, assuming Europe’s jet fuel doesn’t run dry, will be back stateside. I cannot emphasize strongly enough how blessed I am for all the opportunities fate has given me to see the world, up to and in my now 32^nd rotation around the Sun.

Last week on May 6, Axios dropped a report claiming that the United States and Iran were “closing in” on a 14-point memorandum of understanding to bridge gaps substantially enough to formally halt hostilities between the two countries within 48 hours and transition towards a durable, long-term nuclear agreement. Naturally, Wall Street, eager for a resolution that resumes commercial maritime traffic in the contested Strait of Hormuz were thrilled. On the other hand, conservative hawks most stridently opposed to Iran’s nuclear ambitions such as Jewish conservative talk radio host Mark Levin and much of the conservative media ecosystem, were horrified.

Levin, ever the firebrand and a resolute supporter of Israel, dismissed the report as “largely fake” and “disastrous” if true, and went on to warn against talk of “exit ramps” with a “terrorist” regime who have “lied and cheated for 47 years, and they have no intention of changing based on their Islamist ideology.” Levin even went on to attack some Republicans privately encouraging such an exit ramp as “scared of their own shadows” and blind to the “existential” threat of Iran’s nuclear program. Particularly concerning for hawks were rumors of a de facto revival of Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. According to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, “It will be essential for Mr. Trump to hold firm, knowing that Iran has no need for domestic enrichment other than for a bomb, and that he can’t count on a change in regime behavior over time, a mistake Mr. Obama made.”

While the relationship between President Donald Trump and the Journal is strained, several of the most prominent Iran hawks are core figures in the president’s inner circle. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a man regularly demonized, sometimes excessively so, across the American political spectrum and deeply unpopular both at home and overseas, also remains in constant contact with the 47^th President even as Trump’s relationships with other foreign leaders have largely unraveled. South Carolina Senator and Trump golf partner Lindsey Graham, a man who has labeled the Iranian regime as a gang of “religious Nazis” was an indispensable member of the clique, who, like Netanyahu, has for decades urged a massive US attack on Iran. And don’t forget other conservative media personalities on places like Fox News, who, like Levin, Netanyahu, and Graham, believe it’s time to “finish the job” and wipe the Iranian regime off the face of the earth once and for all.

To reconstitute an Obama-like nuclear agreement, in their minds, is nothing short of surrender to the to the most dangerous regime on Earth.

To expect that Donald Trump, the executioner of the 2015 nuclear deal, will defy his core war backers and endure the personal humiliation of consenting to the same sort of arrangement that he has so sharply castigated, remains wishful thinking on the part of Trump’s opponents. While I, and most of the American public, may prefer a diplomatic settlement that stabilizes the global economy and allows a negligible level of uranium enrichment, even with a regime as repugnant and treacherous as Iran’s, those making the decisions right now in Washington carry sharply contrasting priorities. Despite more bad economic news and public opinion rapidly turning against them, I find it highly unlikely that the Trump Administration will back down from a threat they truly believe to be existential.

If the People’s Republic of China (where Trump is visiting imminently), the one nation I believe holds the critical leverage to compel Iran to back down as well by easing their death-grip on the Strait of Hormuz and dismantling their nuclear program, elects not to do so, then the Trump Administration and its core supporters’ life-and-death mindset means that the world may be stuck in this state of limbo and conflict for the long-haul.

On that cheerful note, I will see you all in within the next month with a special historical reflection. Arrivederci!