The Last American, an 1889 dystopian novel, is based on a fictional journal of a Persian admiral who rediscovers America 1,100 years in the future after it’s been virtually wiped out by climate change.
The Persian expedition travels through the ruins of New York City and Washington, D.C., where they encounter and kill the three last Americans.
Remember, an Iranian friend said when he gave me a copy, Iranians have long memories – and a 2,500-year history.
A longer memory, it appears, than that of President Trump.
When Trump’s Friday the 13th speech began “Beginning in 1979” it was clear what Trump doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
By suggesting that the 1979 Islamic Revolution was the beginning of America’s conflict with Iran rather than referencing the 1953 American CIA-led overthrow of Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and his democratically elected government he showed he knows nothing.
While there’s no doubt that since 1979 Iran’s been a hostile player in the Middle East, often embracing terrorism and instability as it tried to its extend regional hegemony, Trump, by ignoring America’s continued role and responsibility in the region – often contributing to regional instability as well – suggested that all the region’s ills are on Tehran’s doorstep.
He’s wrong – we’re part of the problem as well.
In response to Trump’s refusal to recertify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – in spite of Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA – Mohamed El Baredei, once director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, tweeted, “Trump ignoring IAEA inspection findings re Iran’s compliance w/nuclear deal brings to mind run up to Iraq war. Will we ever learn?”
Never if Trump’s an example.
In response to Trump’s decertification move, JCPOA signatories British Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron – in a joint statement – responded: “Preserving the JCPOA is in our shared national security interest. The nuclear deal was the culmination of 13 years of diplomacy and was a major step towards ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program is not diverted for military purposes. The JCPOA was unanimously endorsed by the U.N. Security Council in Resolution 2231. The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly confirmed Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA through its long-term verification and monitoring program.”
General John Hyten, U.S. Strategic Command leader, stated, “The facts are that Iran is operating under the agreements that we signed up for under the JCPOA.”
Why should that matter?
It matters to Iran, which gave up 98 percent of its enriched uranium – about 10 tons – in order to comply with JCPOA.
After Iran elected a moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, in 2013, President Obama seized the opening and two years later an international agreement was reached detailing the most comprehensive and intrusive inspections ever imposed on a nation by the international community.
That isn’t good enough for Trump, who calls JCPOA “embarrassing” and “the worst deal ever.”
Trump wants to decertify the deal, a reckless act that’ll diminish America’s international authority and credibility.
That doesn’t matter to Trump.
It doesn’t matter because it’s not about policy: Trump hates the deal because it’s Obama’s signature foreign policy accomplishment.
That’s why it matters to Trump – the outcome be damned.
Trump’s hostility to JCPOA will be seen by North Korea as proof that diplomatic negotiation and engagement is a fool’s errand – that only a fool would give up its nuclear capacity and trust America to keep its word.
Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, along with an overwhelming majority of Israeli military and intelligence analysts, believes it would be a “mistake” for Trump to decertify JCPOA.
“Even if America decides to pull out of it,” Barak said, “no one will join (America) – not the Chinese, not the Russians, not even the Europeans. It will serve (only) the Iranians.”
Trump is being disingenuous when he claims that the JCPOA is “the worst agreement the United States has ever entered into with another country” – it’s not a bilateral agreement between us and them – it’s a U.N. Security Council resolution.
Condoleezza Rice, too, urged Trump not to decertify: “The United States wants to be seen as living up to the obligations that it’s undertaken from president to president to president.”
Also, JCPOA has no “sunset clause.” Iran has a right to have a non-nuclear-weapons program under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. While some JCPOA provisions will expire, Iran, in six years, will ratify an Additional Protocol on Nuclear Safeguards, part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would subject Iran to ongoing and extensive IAEA inspections and permit it to continue a nuclear program just for energy and medical purposes – all supervised under NPT protocols.
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, when asked by Sen. Angus King whether he thought the agreement was in America’s national security interest, answered, “Yes, Senator, I do.”
Concerns about Iran’s ballistic missile program and regional actions are legitimate and certainly the international community should take appropriate measures – apart from JCPOA – to address and constrain the regime’s destabilizing regional activities.
Iran’s essential to regional stability. While America’s reckless adventurism in Iraq and beyond since 2003 has allowed Iran to expand its regional hegemony, we need Tehran to continue to resist ISIS, to arrive at a political understanding with Iraq’s Sunnis and Kurds, to find paths to reducing conflict Syria and Afghanistan.
None of those issues can be settled without Iran.
The real challenge with Iran isn’t the nuclear issue. The real challenge, for many right-wing Americans and hawks, is that while Iran is compliant with JCPOA it continues to be non-supportive of American interests and actions in the region.
How ungrateful can they be?
Let us be clear.
This is not just about JCPOA, just as it wasn’t just about the ACA, DACA or the Paris accords. This is just the latest chapter of an insecure President Trump continuing his spiteful and untempered assault on President Barack Obama and all that Obama’s administration accomplished – whether it makes sense or not, whether it imperils our security, health and welfare or not.
President Trump said on Friday the 13th that his administration “is returning moral clarity to our view of the world and the many grave challenges we face.”
He lied: There is no “moral clarity” in acting to destabilize America, in acting to destabilize and marginalize nascent movements toward moderation in Iran, in acting to diminish America’s stature and authority in the world.
President Donald Trump, driven by impetuousness, pettiness and ignorance – amplified by his lack of moral clarity – poses a clear and existential risk to our country.
We normalize him – and his impulses – at our peril.
(Robert Azzi is a photographer and writer who lives in Exeter. He can be reached at theother.azzi@gmail.com. His columns are archived at theotherazzi.wordpress.com.)