It has been 47 years since the confrontation between Iran and the United States began. This confrontation has reached its peak during Trump\u2019s presidency, both in his previous term and the current one.<\/p>\n
It seems that the confrontation between Iran and the US under Trump is different from all previous periods. In the previous term, General Qassem Soleimani, a prominent Iranian strategist, was assassinated in Baghdad under Trump\u2019s orders. Subsequently, the Iranians threatened to retaliate by targeting US bases. Trump mockingly addressed Ayatollah Khamenei, saying: \u201cHit us. Why don\u2019t you hit us?\u201d To everyone\u2019s surprise, the US base in Ain al-Asad, Iraq, was struck. For the first time since World War II, a US military base was attacked, breaking a long-standing record. Ultimately, the tension stopped just short of an all-out war.<\/p>\n
In this term as well, after taking office, Trump escalated tensions by issuing threats and deadlines. Amid negotiations and tensions, Israel attacked Iran at dawn on June 13, killing some of Iran\u2019s highest-ranking commanders. Then, 18 hours after Israel\u2019s strike and amid shock and astonishment, Iran retaliated by targeting Tel Aviv. Israel\u2019s three-layer defense system was breached to some extent and partially stood aside as spectators.<\/p>\n
When the US saw that Israel could not achieve its objectives alone and that it took as much damage as it dealt\u2014though Iran suffered far greater human losses\u2014it entered the conflict itself. Contrary to international norms, the US bombed Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities. Trump then claimed that all of Iran\u2019s nuclear sites had been completely destroyed by \u201cbeautiful\u201d aircraft, a feat no other army had accomplished.<\/p>\n
Following the serious incident in December in Iran, Trump intensified tensions further. The first layer was a media campaign: media aligned with Trump launched a bombardment of anti-Iran propaganda. Subsequently, the second layer of pressure\u2014actual military threats\u2014began. The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, accompanied by its strike group, moved toward Iranian waters, followed eventually by the Gerald Ford.<\/p>\n
Amid these threats and noise, one fact was overlooked but practically admitted by the Americans, despite Trump\u2019s claims: these \u201cbeautiful\u201d aircraft were incapable of destroying Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities. Otherwise, there would have been no point in resuming disputes and negotiations.<\/p>\n
Returning to the main issue, Trump pursued psychological warfare and threats using media and military pressure in an attempt to extract concessions from Iranian officials. Apparently, Iranian authorities are not afraid of Trump\u2019s threats and are prepared for all scenarios.<\/p>\n
Now, the real, unfiltered, and straightforward core of the issue involves Trump and Iran. At this level, war and agreement are simultaneously both very distant and very near. If negotiations focus on ensuring that Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons, with guarantees set accordingly, then the percentage of uranium enrichment can be set at the level agreed upon in the JCPOA\u2014or slightly more or less. This option guarantees the chance of an agreement and represents a win-win solution.<\/p>\n
However, if Iran\u2019s missiles become part of the negotiations, the talks are doomed to fail, and war becomes inevitable. In that case, it is clear that such a devastating and extensive war would have no winner and the outcome would be a lose-lose scenario. Therefore, depending on what is placed on the negotiation table, agreement is simultaneously very near and very far\u2014and similarly, war is both very near and very far.<\/p>\n
Dr. Seyyed Javad Sajadi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An analysis of 47 years of Iran-US tensions and the prospects for war or peace under Trump\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","category-secondary-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}