Two Jews Walk Into An Iranian Negotiating Session: This Is Not A Joke
By
Leonard Zwelling
(Posted early in light of events on Saturday morning in Iran. Written on February 27.)
Maybe this will work. I don’t know, but if I were negotiating with the representatives of a country who has sworn to destroy Israel and all the Jews, I wouldn’t be sending two Jewish real estate developers into the room to negotiate for me. Perhaps they were only there for show.
I am quite sure that both Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff have learned a great deal about Arabs traveling around the Middle East doing deals and getting rich off major conflicts of interest. You are not supposed to be using the resources of the American people to line your pockets.
But Iranians are not Arabs and the current regime in Iran has pledged to destroy the Jews. How effective are these guys going to be?
In addition, the president has now moved the huge armada of ships and planes into the Iranian waters. This is Gun Boat Diplomacy at its finest. If you put all of that hardware in the water, are you really not going to use at least some of it?
Let’s also remember that Mr. Trump put a smaller armada off the coast of Venezuela and then used the Delta Force to snatch the dictator president and his wife, bring them back to the U.S., and then….
Exactly. Crickets. Venezuela is still run by a bunch of thugs who are, in fact, the same thugs that were there when Trump invaded. How does that help anyone?
I’m sorry folks, I have no idea what we are doing off the coast of Iran. If Trump “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capability in June, why does he need to go back so soon? And what is the objective of any military action? Scare them back to the negotiating table with the two Jews so they will give up their nuclear program and their missiles? Not likely to happen.
Or does Trump really think he can foment regime change in Iran? If he wants to do the latter, it will take ground troops. He can’t just kill the ayatollah from the air and all of a sudden have the demonstrators take over the government. The Revolutionary Guard will prevent that.
Then, as David Sanger pointed out on Fresh Air on February 27, there’s the fact that the real nuclear threats to the U.S. are Russia, China, and North Korea. We now have no non-proliferation treaties with any of these actors.
But perhaps the biggest gripe I have with all of this saber rattling by Trump is that I see no overall plan for the U.S. foreign policy. Maybe Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State AND the National Security Advisor like Henry Kissinger before him, has a plan. Do tell.
This is adventurism at its worst and will likely lead to nothing. If all Trump wants is to cut an Iranian deal better than Obama’s, I think that unlikely. If he wants to conquer the country of Iran, his MAGA base will be furious. He’s really gotten himself into a pickle. How he gets out of it should be interesting to watch, but likely either costly in money or worse. The United States does not need to shed treasure or blood for this unless Trump is serious about really reducing the threat from Iran. I don’t think that occurs from the air and the sea alone.
This all seems to be a bad idea. As Dustin Hoffman said in the graduate, “it’s not half baked. It’s completely baked.”
