Trading threats with the Islamist leader in Tehran evokes the lead-up to talks with Kim Jong Un and a deal of little substance.
President Donald Trump’s heated exchange of threats with Iran’s leaders this week is raising questions about whether the world has seen this show before — and whether it will end the same way.
Is it possible, as he did with North Korea, that Trump will ramp up sanctions and rhetorical pressure on Tehran, only to eventually back off, reach a deal of little substance with the country’s leaders and declare, implausibly, that he solved a decades-old problem?
While it’s still too early to judge the outcome of Trump’s historic summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, analysts say there are signs that Trump’s approach to Iran could echo his approach to the North. After all, Trump has already sought to meet with Iranian officials, and his advisers won’t rule out future engagement. He’s eager to strike deals on the world stage. And Iran holds important leverage in places where Trump would like to withdraw U. S. troops, such as Syria.
“If I’m an Iranian opposition activist, I’m going to ask myself, ‘How committed is this American president to this strategy?’” said Alex Vatanka, an Iran specialist with the Middle East Institute. “The wild card with Trump is that he might get a better deal from the Iranian regime, and that means that the opposition who followed Trump into this process becomes collateral damage.”
For now, Trump seems happy to keep needling the Iranian leadership.
On Sunday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani warned Trump not to interfere in his country, because “war with Iran is the mother of all wars.” Hours later, Trump fired back at Rouhani on Twitter, in all caps: “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE.”
The exchange was so reminiscent of Trump’s warning last August that he would respond to North Korean threats with “fire and fury” that reporters asked the White House on Monday whether the president was willing to eventually sit down with the Iranians, the way he did with Kim. (Press secretary Sarah Sanders deflected the question.) Asked whether he had any concerns about his tweet provoking tensions with Iran, Trump himself said, “None at all.”
The president exhibited similar bravado toward North Korea last year.
He called Kim “Little Rocket Man” and castigated the government in Pyongyang for its human rights record. Kim shot back that Trump was a “dotard,” and his government threatened a nuclear showdown. The Trump team worked in concert with other countries to increase economic sanctions on the North, a campaign it called “maximum pressure.” The president also used his speech before the United Nations General Assembly last September to trash both Iran and North Korea.
But for most of this year, Trump has taken a radically different approach to North Korea than he has with Iran.
After an invitation from the North, Trump and Kim held a summit in Singapore to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Trump also dramatically dialed down his complaints about North Korea’s human rights record, and after the June summit, praised Kim repeatedly and put key U. S.-South Korean military exercises on hold. The sanctions, technically, remain in place.
The summit resulted in a vague Trump-Kim statement that committed North Korea to “complete denuclearization” but gave no time frame and no specifics. It was far from the “complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization” Trump’s team had long demanded prior to the summit. Still, to the surprise of much of the world, Trump soon claimed on Twitter: “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.
