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 manipulated Trump the way Iago manipulated Othello.
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, would soon die.
This observation came to mind as I listened to Fareed Zakaria discuss this withdrawal on his CNN show on Sunday. He quoted extensively from an authoritative column by 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 key points:
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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 Midas touch in reverse, Israel is far less secure today because he put his hand on that Iran Nuclear deal.
Similar touches defined his presidency: North Korea is a greater nuclear power today because he tried his hand at brokering a denuclearization deal with dictator Kim Jong-un. Yet the terminally narcissistic Trump still displays love letters Kim sent him as evidence that their negotiations were a tremendous success.
Then there’s that Chamberlain-style peace deal he struck with the Taliban. It amounted to little more than a green light for the Taliban to march on Kabul, triggering the chaotic Afghanistan evacuation as the world watched in horror.
I predicted this years ago
Regarding Zakaria’s consternation, I could’ve spared him that years ago. After all, I have written a series of commentaries not just preempting Boot’s analysis but predicting the very lamentations these former Israeli security officials would make.
I realized some time ago that it often suffices to merely cite the titles to make compelling points. My previous commentaries warned that Trump’s approach was “MALO than MAGA” and predicted the consequences of “blowing up the nuclear deal” would backfire spectacularly.
This is why nobody should be surprised that Trump’s withdrawal would top the list of messes Biden would have to clean up. More importantly, it’s why 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’m also constrained to note what’s conspicuously absent from Boot’s column; namely, any mention of these officials making their regrets complete by apologizing to Obama publicly. They spent years effectively supporting 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.
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.
Trump’s Achilles heel
My previous commentary focused 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 how Trump’s relationship with everyone invariably says more about the other party 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. You have to wonder why purportedly patriotic Republicans have decided to pledge greater loyalty to a wannabe dictator and insurrectionist than to the country itself.
With respect to Israeli Jews, 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 it’s even more perverse than that. As iPINIONS noted before, I find the way Israeli Jews embrace evangelical Christians utterly stupefying (American Jews apparently know better.
The alliance between Israeli Jews and evangelical Christians remains equally perplexing. The inherent contradictions in this relationship, where evangelicals simultaneously protect and seek to convert “God’s chosen people,” reveal the complex dynamics at play. I’ve explored this Armageddon bargain between white evangelicals and Jews in greater detail elsewhere.
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