Eventually, the US president in a heavily advertised speech on Friday announced what his team called his new strategy on Iran and the Joint Comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) officially.
Despite US President Donald Trump Friday speech that claimed to be unveiling a new strategy to address the full range of Iran's destructive actions, his speech was neither new or a strategy.
Most part of his speech expressed his anger at Iran’s support for its regional allies like Hezbollah, missile test, Iran’s fundamental regional policy and a series of repetitive accusations against Iran. In fact, he didn’t explain what, specifically, his new strategy would be.
While much of the speech was more rhetoric than policy, he unveiled two new policies toward Iran. One was sanctioning Iran’s elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard, which is already under US heavy sanction and the other was decertifying the Iran nuclear deal that doesn’t actually pull the US out of the agreement.
The speech was in fact the repetition of Trump’s Predecessors hostile policy toward Iran, but this time expressed in a more discourteously and uncivilly tone by diplomatically illiterate Trump.
With his heavily advertised speech on Friday that he and his team introduced as America’s new Iran strategy, Trump is aiming dual goals domestically and internationally.
Connecting Iran and its elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard not only to Al-Qaida, North Korea like his Predecessors and the US military and intelligence establishments that labelled Iran as 'axis of evil' it is obvious that Iran is defined as the key geopolitical enemy by the Trump administration which is a real obstacle in the way of the US geopolitical ambitions for the region.
Despite certifying Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal (JCPOA) which Iran inked with world major powers by the IAEA, Trump decertified it because the US real goal is regime change in Iran to bring to power the US agents, so no matter Iran complies with the JCPOA.
What Trump has done is to kick the ball to US Congress's court and congress which have already passed many sanctions against Iran will continue on this path. In this way, Washington won’t formally withdrawal from the JCPOA, but will keep on pressure on Iran.
Domestically, Trump knows very well that breaking the nuclear deal with Iran will put US in a difficult situation and will isolate it more because the European countries, Russia and China which are increasingly active in Iran won’t follow up the US policy toward Iran. Moreover, a US-Iranian crisis could negatively affect US-Russia relations, too.
On the other hand, Trump has promised to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran during his presidential campaign. Kicking the ball to the Congress court by decertifying Iran’s compliance with the JCPOA and repeating his harsh repetitive rhetoric against Iran and the, he tries to pretend that he is trying to meet his campaign promises, so most part of his Friday speech is for domestic use.
/SR
