-Analysis-
U.S. President Donald Trump is pressuring his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky as part of his plan to end the war in Ukraine. He wants access to Ukraine’s rare minerals in exchange for more support from the United States, and as payment for aid, arms and cash given so far.
For the latest news & views from every corner of the world, Worldcrunch Today is the only truly international newsletter. Sign up here.
Zelensky, being in a weaker position, has been broadly compliant, responding in moderate terms to the verbal abuse the administration has thrown at him. But as a head of state, he has limits, as the recent spat at the White House and the lack of any deal have shown.
Trump knows how to use his country’s power to extract concessions, even if the United States is not fighting this war. In this, he is following the example of historic presidents like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan, who used wars not of their own making to forward America’s political and economic interests.
Iran’s cards
For Trump, use of power is a diplomatic tool, though his objectives appear to be mainly economic. He wants the United States to become a profitable company for its people, and only considers foreign leaders as true allies when they aid this objective. The United States, he believes, is not a charity, refuge or shelter; it does not owe the world money, which is why he will always push for the best deal. Here, too, he will want something from both Ukraine and Russia.
Few countries enjoy such a privileged situation allowing them to negotiate this way. In the Cold War, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger could negotiate with both the Soviets and communist China in line with U.S. interests. Just as Kissinger was a political realist, Trump is a pragmatist and focused on results.
At very short notice, he may tell his interlocutor the situation is bleak (“You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now,” he told Zelensky at the White House) giving the other side the impression it has no choice but to concede and cut a deal. He insists he does not want war — and we may fairly assume he does not — but he has shown he won’t shy away from conflict.
This may be Trump’s approach in dealing with Iran. The clerical regime that has been in a state of near-constant tension with the United States since 1979. During his first term (2017-2021), Trump began implementing a policy of maximum pressure on the regime — a policy he is renewing.
Trump’s conditions will be so draconian as to force Iranian leaders to refuse negotiations.
Occasionally his administration would engage in sharp, punitive actions should the regime seek to respond with some brazen action or insidious maneuver. The most notable example was the 2020 U.S. airstrike that killed Revolutionary guards general Qasem Soleimani and several Iraqi militants traveling with him in a convoy Iraq’s Baghdad International Airport.
Iran had more and better cards — to use Trump’s vocabulary — to play during his first term. The economy was not quite in such a dismal state, and it could count on its regional proxies, notably Hamas and Hezbollah, to bully Arab states and threaten Western interests. These have now taken a battering, and Tehran has lost Syria as its forward bastion and an open trafficking route.
Trump says he prefers talking to bombing the country, but his conditions will be so draconian as to force Iranian leaders — in a manner perversely comparable to Zelensky’s position — to refuse negotiations. Thus the maximum pressures meant ostensibly to avoid war, may in fact make military action more likely.
A people person
Trump’s maximalist recipe involves minimizing Iranian oil earnings, meaning both extraction and discreet shipping through “proxy” tankers. That would require some use of military force. Other options include striking refineries, hacking or cyberattacks, or backing protesters against the regime.
Tehran, while lacking the United States’ might and resources, has meanwhile shown skill at engaging in some form of reprisal. Its actions may yield very little in material terms but indicate it is here and planning something harmful and surprising. That could mean striking shipping, throwing mines into the sea, organizing in a bomb attack or murders — always in the shadows — or its choice recipe: taking hostages of interest to the West for ransom or as bargaining chips. Inside the country, it will seek to crush protests to survive or as a final act of self-defense.
Trump has never addressed Khamenei in person.
Trump is a people person — though strictly in the sense that he likes to deal with individuals over institutions. Zelensky’s failure to forge a personal rapport with Trump may have contributed to his current bind — although Trump’s treatment of Ukraine relates more to the fact that the war there does not and cannot harm U.S. interests and security. It’s not quite the same with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s vociferously anti-American supreme leader.
Trump has criticized Tehran several times for its violent and disruptive policies, but never addressed Khamenei in person. As a “people person,” this is significant. Is he being cautious because he fears that as a religious leader, Khamenei has zealous followers who could harm U.S. interests in the region? The slain general Soleimani also had his following, yet he was struck down.
Front row seats
It has to be said, if harsh sanctions do not spark mass protests in Iran, they will fail to sway the regime by themselves, because sanctions generally squeeze common folk rather than those in power, and more so in kleptocratic regimes. They are unlikely to prove decisive in terms of regime change without a complement of either protests, or strikes.
Some have argued that economic pressures could topple the regime the way failed economics brought down the Soviet Union. Yet that would be more plausible if Iran were being run by reformists. It is not, as power is now in the hands of Khamenei loyalists and a senior core in the Revolutionary guards.
For the Iranian regime, accepting Trump’s conditions would be akin to an act of self destruction. It will resist sanctions as far as it can, and is ready to punish Iranians should they return to the streets. As it happens, its last resort inside the country — the repressive apparatus — could also be its weak point. Because the individuals who order their thugs onto the streets are the self-same people involved in international terrorism and its financing.
In plainer terms, the oppressors, the hangmen, the terrorists and those who threaten U.S. interests as surely as they order agents to fire on a crowd in Tehran, are those usually seated in the front rows whenever the regime gathers. Could the regime resist an onslaught, or an uprising, if those seats were empty?
