Sen. Bob Corker seemed to speak for many in Washington — including a lot of Republicans — when he unloaded on President Trump in an interview with The New…
Sen. Bob Corker seemed to speak for many in Washington — including a lot of Republicans — when he unloaded on President Trump in an interview with The New York Times, in which he described the president as “reckless” and his White House as a “reality show.”
Earlier, Corker, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, designated Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly as the men who “separate our country from chaos,” the implication being without these “adults,” hindering him, Trump would set the nation “on a path to World War III.”
It’s easy to understand why the GOP establishment is exasperated with him. Trump generally doesn’t know what he’s talking about and, even when he’s acting responsibly, he does so in a manner that leaves everyone with a bad taste in their mouths. His willingness to say anything — even things that are obviously not true — about those who cross him may delight his base but it comes with a cost.
As such, his credibility is shot with many in Congress whose support he needs to enact change.
A lot of otherwise smart and sober people in Washington just aren’t listening to Trump on Iran. They understand that President Barack Obama’s signature foreign-policy accomplishment didn’t freeze Iran’s nuclear program — in fact, it laid the foundation for international acceptance of an Iranian nuke because the restrictions in the agreement will expire in a decade.
Obama was so desperate for a deal that he gave the mullahs a free pass to continue being the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and building missiles that can carry nukes to hit Israel, moderate Arab nations and Europe. Iran was not only enriched by the return of billions in frozen assets and the collapse of sanctions, but it has felt empowered to pursue its agenda of regional hegemony with destabilizing military adventures.
In particular, Corker, whose foolishness was largely responsible for Obama being able to get approval for the Iran deal via an extra-constitutional backdoor method, has no business posing as some kind of expert. For all of Trump’s ignorance, he has grasped one essential truth the adults prefer to ignore: Letting Obama’s deal remain in place without substantial changes to curb Iran’s current misbehavior and to ensure that, contrary to its terms, Tehran won’t be allowed to go nuclear in the near future is essential to US security.
The “adult” consensus that the rest of the world can thwart any unilateral US effort to change the terms of Iran’s re-entry to the world economy is also wrong. If Washington decides to enforce its decision to renegotiate or terminate the deal, it can make it impossible for any nation that wants to do business in the United States or with American financial institutions to also do business with Iran. If Trump is allowed to put the screws to the Iranians, as Obama should have, he might bring Iran to heel.
In politics, style is often substance, which means Trump’s bad behavior is considered synonymous with stupidity. But what the governing class forgets is that its inertia and acceptance of terrible things — like a deal that empowers Iran or the way 20 years of appeasing North Korea has led to our current problems with that rogue regime — shouldn’t be confused with wisdom.
Trump’s loose talk and tweeting usually gets in the way of governing. He needs experienced pros to put a brake on his worst instincts. But on Iran, it’s the adults who are, in Rex Tillerson’s unfortunate phrase, playing the “morons.” Republicans and Democrats who understand the truth about the damage the Iran deal did to US security shouldn’t be deceived into helping them stop Trump from doing the right thing.
Jonathan S. Tobin is opinion editor of JNS.org and a contributing writer for National Review.
Twitter: @jonathans_tobin
