| | | | Here's Why Trump Should Stick with the Iran Deal… | | President Trump tweeted Monday that he will make an announcement on the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday at 2 p.m. Ilan Goldenberg and Ariane Tabatabai write that while the consequences of the US walking away from the agreement might not be felt immediately, they would haunt America for years to come.
Iran wouldn't necessarily "immediately and furiously start the dash to a nuclear weapon. One need only look at the strategy Iran pursued since the 1980s to understand how it might respond. Prior to agreeing to the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], Tehran spent years making steady but slow progress toward a nuclear weapon capability. It avoided activities that it assumed would galvanize the international community and potentially prompt an American military response. Instead this incremental progress allowed it to master the uranium enrichment process and amass an enriched uranium stockpile that left it with an option to quickly move to a nuclear bomb if it decided to do so," they write in Slate.
"Likewise, today the Iranians are unlikely to respond by kicking out all the international inspectors on the ground or by enriching weapons-grade uranium. They probably would not withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, as some officials have been threatening recently. Instead, they are much more likely to incrementally resume the sensitive nuclear activities currently limited by the JCPOA—such as operating more and more advanced centrifuges and surpassing the limits on their enriched uranium stockpiles."
| | …And Why He Should Nix It | | | If President Trump is going to walk away from the deal, then he is right to do it sooner rather than later, argues Michael Makovsky for Reuters. After all, "time is Iran's friend."
"The nearer the 2030 sunset draws, the more nuclear activity the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] permits. And the closer Iran gets to a robust nuclear program the more determined to persevere it will become, reducing the chance and time for any coercive strategy to succeed. Also, US leverage will decline as Iran expands its global trade, bolsters its military arsenal, and cements its positions on the borders of the United States' Middle Eastern allies," he argues.
"Barack Obama backed Americans into a dangerous corner with the JCPOA. Now Trump has nudged Americans into another corner with threats to withdraw. A prepared president should seize the historic opportunity to follow through on that threat." | | Don't Buy Russia's Sob Story | | As Vladimir Putin began his fourth presidential term Monday, Russia appears determined to further cut itself off from the West. But don't fall for the narrative that this is what the West wanted, writes William Courtney for The Cipher Brief. There have been plenty of attempts to bring Moscow into the fold.
"The G7 expanded to the G8 by including Russia in 1997 even though it was not an advanced democracy (Russia was removed after its aggression in Ukraine). The West backed Russia's admission to the World Trade Organization, even cajoling Georgia not to veto it. NATO created a high-level NATO-Russia Council for consultation and joint action," Courtney writes.
"If Russia were to act as a cooperative great power, and improve its economy and open itself to wider trade and investment, its influence would rise and integration with the West would deepen." "The price of oil is the highest it has been since 2014, pouring much-needed money into government coffers and giving Mr. Putin extra room to maneuver amid growing tensions with the West and protests at home."
"Rising oil prices could help Mr. Putin shore up support among Russians who, after seeing a decade of military expenditures at as much as 5% of gross domestic product, want to see greater social spending."
| | US Shouldn't Be Cheerleading for a Venezuela Coup | | The suggestions by some US officials that they might back a military coup in Venezuela are misguided, writes Brian Fonseca in Foreign Policy. Doing so would be bad for America's image – and its interests.
"The US officials praising the prospect of a military takeover seem to disregard the fact that US-Venezuelan military relations are virtually nonexistent today. US defense contacts with Venezuela declined sharply in the years following the rise of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 1999. Meanwhile, the Russians, Chinese, and Cubans have replaced the United States as the primary sources of financial, technical, and material support to the Venezuelan military," Fonseca writes.
"The mere threat of a coup in Venezuela could be enough to rally the military around hard-liners and compel US rivals to consider their preferred alternatives to the Maduro regime as collapse becomes imminent. Rivals with economic, political, and geostrategic interests in Venezuela, such as Russia and China, are far better positioned than the United States to influence the Venezuelan military during any transition."
| | Russia's Other Fake News Mission | | Coverage of Russia's involvement in producing fake news usually overlooks something important, writes Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post. One of the biggest audiences is Russians themselves.
"This isn't because Russia has become the Soviet Union, or a totalitarian state with one newspaper[…]But the appearance of variety is deceptive. Though the styles are very different, the vast majority of media is owned by the state or state-linked companies, and the stories are often remarkably alike. On television, which is where most Russians get their news, much of what they see about the West is overwhelmingly dark and negative," Applebaum writes.
"Daily life in Europe is depicted as frightening and chaotic; Europeans are weak, with declining morality and no common values; terrorism keeps people paralyzed with fear; the refugee crisis is getting worse all the time; sanctions on Russia have backfired and are now undermining the European economy and destroying the welfare state. Russia, in the version of the world depicted here, does not need a welfare state, since its citizens are so much hardier."
| | Gina Haspel, President Trump's nominee to succeed Mike Pompeo as CIA director, "is scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, marking a high-profile public showdown for an official whose career at the spy agency is largely veiled in secrecy," The Hill reports.
Iraq holds elections Saturday. Renad Mansour writes in the Washington Post that identity still rules in the country's polls. "To win votes, each leader focuses on tapping into preexisting identity-based networks. For the most part, Shiite leaders will win the Shiite vote, Kurdish leaders will win the Kurdish vote and Sunnis leaders will win the Sunni vote. Even the major cross ethno-sectarian lists competing in Sunni areas employ Sunni candidates to win the vote." | | | | | | |
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