Politicians Play Checkers, Leaders Play Chess

I love listening to the talking heads pontificate about what’s occurring in the Middle East especially those claiming that Iran’s hostility toward the U.S. began not in 1979, but in 1953, when Washington backed the removal of then Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.  President Obama echoed this sentiment on his first trip to the Middle East in 2009, citing America’s Cold War role in toppling a “democratically elected” Iranian leader.  But as usual, the constitutional law professor got it wrong – Mossadegh wasn’t elected, he was appointed by the shah, who remained head of state.

But even if one wrongly accepts the premise that Mossadegh was victimized, that doesn’t explain the Islamic Republic’s enduring hatred of America, and to be very clear, the 1979 revolution had nothing to do with restoring democracy.  It was a theocratic revolt designed to crush liberal values, not champion them.  For those with an Obama like perspective of history, they forget that Khomeini’s regime quickly dismantled whatever democratic institutions existed in Iran at the time.

The regime’s anti-Americanism is ideological, not historical.  The mullahs oppose secularism, liberalism, and support for Israel—not because of a coup 70 years ago, but because those values contradict their vision of an Islamic state.  Fortunately, most Iranians don’t share their government’s hatred and polls consistently show that Iranians admire American people and culture more than any other population in the region, outside Israel. In fact, during the 2017 U.S. travel ban, Iranians flooded social media with #LoveBeyondFlags posts in support of Americans.  Today’s Iranian regime may chant “Death to America,” but the Iranian people increasingly reject that message.  And Mossadegh’s fall is little more than a historical footnote.

With that as a backdrop, the United States has been in an undeclared war with Iran for almost half a century.  The Iranian regime has been responsible for scores confirmed military deaths and even more wounded; it has taken journalists, scholars, and businesspeople and held them as hostages while the Mullahs spend billions supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.  They’ve instituted regional wars, raised nuclear tension, disrupted oil markets, launched cyber-attacks against major U.S. banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, and Bank of America and done everything it could to undermine American foreign policy from Iraq to Lebanon to Gaza.

In response, the U.S. under Barack Obama gave the Mullahs sanctions relief that provided providing Iran with  more than $100 billion in previously frozen assets.  In addition, under the cover of night, the Obama administration gave the Mullahs $400 million in cash, but what the legacy media failed to report, was that Obama also gave them $1.3 billion in “withheld interest” that was paid later, which coincidentally occurred the same time Iran released four American hostages – do the math!

And in a final show of disrespect on January 12, 2016, it humiliated the United States when two U.S. Navy riverine boats were captured at gunpoint by the Iranian navy, followed by videos broadcast worldwide showing a U.S. sailors apologizing and kneeling with hands on their heads.  Afterwards, then U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry expressed “appreciation” to the Mullahs for releasing the sailors.  You can’t make this stuff up folks!

~ Enter Donald Trump ~

President Trump is not a professional politician as were his predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden. He’s a businessman, and as such, fully understands the economic ramifications of instability in the world and how Iran is THE greatest threat to world peace.  And perhaps the best way to illustrate the difference between a politician and a businessman is to examine who their respective agendas affect their approach to world problems.

A politician’s primary agenda is getting re-elected, and their focus is on approval ratings and political capital, while a businessman focuses making the company’s shareholders happy which in the political world translates to peace and prosperity for all.  So how does a businessman’s perspective fuse with politics?  I can’t answer that, but it appears Trump’s approach to the world at large is one of creating ‘the conditions for peace and stability’ with a goal of  mutual economic benefit, hence his push to expand the Abraham Accords in the region. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece, regarding the IMEC, the India–Middle East–Europe Corridor, a joint initiative among the U.S., India, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the EU. Its goal was to connect South Asia to Europe via rail, ports, pipelines, cables, etc., which the president has obviously embraced.

And for all his unpredictability, Trump consistently exhibits a knack for economic leverage — and that may be what’s unfolding here.  But before that could occur, job one was eliminating the Mullahs’ nuclear ambitions, which he did in concert with the Israelis.  But the peace can be more difficult than the war and considering the byzantine nature of the region, agendas can turn on a dime.  But Trump’s actions suggest he’s laying the groundwork for a restart — not by preaching peace, but by making peace a prerequisite for investment in a region long shaped by wars over ideology and control.  And that in and of itself, may be a kind of strategy.

Quote of the day:  “Life is simpler when you plow around the stump” – Old farm saying