Donald Trump has boasted about withdrawing the United States from the Iran Nuclear deal as if it were the most impressive diplomatic feat since Richard Nixon opened diplomatic relations with China. And Bibi Netanyahu has boasted about getting Trump to withdraw from that deal as if he had as much to do with it as Henry Kissinger had to do with that opening to China.
But, as writer Rick Wilson famously observed, “Everything Trump Touches Dies…”. Therefore, it was all too foreseeable that – whatever life he and Netanyahu thought they were breathing into Israeli security by withdrawing from this deal – it would soon die.
This observation came to mind as I listened on Sunday to Fareed Zakaria begin discussion about this withdrawal on his CNN show Fareed Zakaria GPS. He quoted at length from an authoritative column by internationally acclaimed commentator Max Boot, which The Washington Post published on December 7.
I was sufficiently interested to read Boot’s column myself. It is titled “Because Trump left the nuclear deal, we might have to learn to live with a nuclear Iran.” Here are the relevant parts – much of which Zakaria quoted with apparent consternation:
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Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran got rid of 97 percent of its nuclear fuel and limited its uranium enrichment to just 3.67 percent purity. Its ‘breakout’ time to produce enough material to make a nuclear bomb was estimated to be more than a year.
Trump’s withdrawal allowed Iran to rev up its nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported last year that Iran had 12 times the amount of enriched uranium allowed under the deal. It is also enriching uranium to 60 percent purity, just short of the 90 percent needed to make nuclear weapons. Its breakout time has shrunk to as little as three weeks. It will take longer to manufacture the warheads needed to create nuclear weapons, but Iran is far closer to that dreaded milestone than it was in 2018.
Even former Israeli security officials, most of whom opposed President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, now admit that pulling out of it has backfired. Benjamin Netanyahu’s former defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, said last month: ‘Looking at the policy on Iran in the last decade, the main mistake was the withdrawal of the U.S. administration from the agreement.’
Former Mossad director Tamir Pardo described the pullout as a ‘tragedy.’ Retired general Isaac Ben Israel, chairman of the Israeli Space Agency, called ‘Netanyahu’s efforts to persuade the Trump administration to quit the nuclear agreement … the worst strategic mistake in Israel’s history.’
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In other words, thanks to Trump’s notorious Sidam touch, Israel is far less secure today because he put his hand on that Iran Nuclear deal.
But, apropos of Wilson’s observation, similar touches defined his presidency. For example, North Korea is a greater nuclear power today because he tried his hand at brokering a denuclearization deal with its dictator Kim Jong-un. Yet, to this day, the terminally narcissistic Trump displays love letters Kim sent him as evidence that their negotiations were a tremendous success. Then of course there’s that Chamberlainian peace deal he struck with the Taliban. Except it amounted to little more than a green light for the Taliban to march on Kabul, which triggered the Vietnam-style evacuation of US troops, personnel, and allies as the whole world watched in horror.
Regarding Zakaria’s consternation, however, I could’ve spared him that years ago. After all, I have written a series of commentaries not just preempting Boot’s commentary but presaging the lamentations of the former Israeli security officials both he and Zakaria found so persuasive.
I realized some time ago that it often suffices to merely cite the titles to make compelling points. (Of course I encourage you to read the commentaries in full at your leisure.) The titles in this case include,
- “Trump Decertifying Iran Nuclear Deal more MALO than MAGA,” October 13, 2017;
- “Blowing Up Iran Nuclear Deal Just Trump Doing as Stupid Does,” April 7, 2018;
- “Iran Nuclear Deal: Trump Withdrawal Explosive,” May 9, 2018; and
- “Preview of Gulf War III Starring Trump as Othello, Netanyahu as Iago, and Iran as Desdemona,” May 7, 2019.
This is why nobody should be surprised not just that Trump’s withdrawal would be top of the list of messes Biden would have to clean up, but that Israel would live to regret Netanyahu goading Trump into executing it.
Even so, I’d be remiss not to note the logical inconsistency in Boot and Zakaria citing those former Israeli security officials. After all, if these officials hadn’t opposed Obama’s deal in the first place, Netanyahu and Trump would not have had the military imprimatur they relied on to execute their plainly misguided political mission to withdraw the United States from it.
I am also constrained to note that conspicuously absent from Boot’s column is any mention of these officials making their regrets complete by apologizing to Obama – publicly. After all, they spent years effectively saluting Trump and Netanyahu’s overtly racist insinuation that Obama struck the nuclear deal with Iran because he’s a closeted Muslim who wants to wipe Israel off the map just as much as the Ayatollah does.
Of course, it turns out that, as president, Obama was (and still is) a better friend to Israel than Trump was (or ever will be) …
In any event, the last of those titles is particularly noteworthy. Because that commentary focuses on the child-like susceptibility to idle flattery that is Trump’s Achilles heel.
Except that the vengeful jealousy he feels when it’s lavished on others at his expense makes him equally flawed. This was thrown into stark relief within weeks of him leaving office, causing Trump to go from hailing Netanyahu as his soulmate to damning him to hell.
Former President Donald Trump lashed out with profanity at Benjamin Netanyahu for congratulating President Joe Biden on his victory in last year’s election, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.
‘Nobody did more for Bibi. And I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi. But I also like loyalty. … Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake. …
I haven’t spoken to him since. F*ck him.’ Trump was quoted as saying.
(CBS News, December 10, 2021)
But his antic damning of Bibi highlights the phenomenon that Trump’s relationship with everyone and every group invariably says more about the other than him. For example, you have to wonder why, of all US presidents, evangelical Christians have abandoned every tenet of their faith to worship a certifiable heathen like Trump. And you have to wonder why, of all US presidents, purportedly patriotic Republicans have decided to pledge greater loyalty to a wannabe dictator and insurrectionist like Trump than to the country itself.
With respect to Israeli Jews, though, you have to wonder why, of all US presidents, Bibi bestowed Israel’s highest honor (i.e., coining him a latterday Cyrus the Great) on a congenital anti-Semite like Trump. But the it’s even more perverse than that. Because, as the following illustrates, I have found the way Israeli Jews embrace evangelical Christians utterly stupefying (evidently American Jews know better):
I’ll spare you my sermon on the ‘biblical’ alliance between these two polarizing religious sects. Suffice it to consider the condescension/bigotry inherent in these Christians deeming it an article of their faith – not only to protect Jews (whom they hail as ‘God’s chosen people’), but also to convert them to Christianity to ensure they make it into Heaven.
Never mind the contradiction inherent in God needing self-professed Evangelicals to convert his chosen people for his rapture.
(“Alas, Bush Still Being Misled/Goaded by Cheney,” The iPINIONS Journal, May 4, 2015)
I vented my stupefaction at length in a podcast episode titled “The Armageddon Bargain Between (White) Evangelicals and Jews,” March 3, 2021.
Related commentaries:
Chamberlainian peace deal… blowing up nuclear deal… MALO than MAGA…
Afghanistan evacuation… wipe Israel off map… Armageddon…