{"id":24102,"date":"2019-07-22T11:16:04","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T06:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.en.eurica.ir\/?p=24102"},"modified":"2025-02-19T10:57:16","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T07:27:16","slug":"iran-is-not-the-aggressor-the-us-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/iran-is-not-the-aggressor-the-us-is\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Is Not the Aggressor \u2014 the US Is"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

If a war breaks out, it won\u2019t be because the Trump administration \u201cbumbled\u201d into one.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

It\u2019s easy to be confused about what\u2019s happening between the U.S. and Iran.<\/p>\r\n

On July 10, President Trump again\u00a0accused\u00a0Iran of violating the Obama-era nuclear deal, in a tweet that he concluded by promising to increase U.S. sanctions \u201csubstantially.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Similarly,\u00a0 headlines \u2014 such as a recent\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0article that originally proclaimed, \u201cWith a New Threat, Iran Tests the Resolve of the U.S. and Its Allies\u201d \u2014 strongly suggest that Iran is the aggressor, and taking steps that heighten tensions in the Middle East.<\/p>\r\n

That view is driven by Trump administration officials like Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook, National Security Advisor and long-time proponent of invading Iran John Bolton, and other right-wing officials like Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. Cottonsaid in an interview\u00a0on Fox News Sunday that he sees \u201cIran steadily marching up the escalation chain,\u201d which he said justifies U.S. air strikes against the country.<\/p>\r\n

In June, administration officials made the serious allegation that Iran had attacked two cargo ships in the Gulf of Oman \u2014 only to see their accountdisputed by a captain\u00a0on one of the very ships that was attacked. Then there was a week of movement toward military action \u2014 at the height of which the acting secretary of defense stepped down because stories of\u00a0horrific domestic violence\u00a0toward his wife came to light.<\/p>\r\n

Iran shot down a U.S. surveillance drone, with Iran and the U.S. asserting conflicting stories about whether or not the aircraft was in Iranian airspace. And then, of course, the president ordered an airstrike on Iran \u2014 only to cancel it with U.S. planes presumably moments away from\u00a0killing up to 150 Iranians, which would have dramatically escalated the conflict.<\/p>\r\n

Throughout these twists and turns,Trump, his Secretary of State, and other officials have repeated the phrase \u201cwe don\u2019t want war.\u201d If that\u2019s the case \u2014 that the U.S. wants to avoid war, even as Iran is supposedly taking a hostile posture and unilaterally escalating tensions \u2014 then the Trump administration\u2019s instability and incompetence is surely worrisome. As a result, critics in both the media and Congress, not to mention the Democratic presidential field, are warning the administration could\u00a0\u201cbumble\u201d into a war.<\/p>\r\n

But whatever officials say, and as erratic as the sequence of events has been, one thing is clear: It\u2019s the U.S. that is belligerently threatening Iran, not the other way around. And if a war breaks out, it won\u2019t be because the administration \u201cbumbled\u201d into one.<\/p>\r\n

It was, after all, the Trump administration that pulled out of the nuclear agreement \u2014 an agreement that Iranwas fully complying with\u00a0\u2014 which makes the administration\u2019s complaints about Iran\u2019s present enrichment levels totally bankrupt.<\/p>\r\n

It was the U.S. that sent an aircraft carrier,\u00a0the USS Abraham Lincoln, to the Gulf of Oman, right off Iran\u2019s coast. It\u2019s worth imagining how Americans might respond were Iran to send military vessels to the coast of California. And\u00a0it\u2019s theU.S. that\u2019s\u00a0sent nuclear-capable B-52 bombers\u00a0to the region, too.<\/p>\r\n

In May, Trump announced that he wasdeploying 1,500 U.S. troops\u00a0to the Middle East \u2014 in addition to the thousands already stationed in the region. At the same time, the U.S. withdrew diplomatic staff from Iraq, removing them from harm\u2019s way should there be a military confrontation. In June, officials announced the deployment of1,000 more troops. And as the U.S. has shifted ships, sailors, and marines toward Iran, the Middle East is\u00a0now home to the largest number of U.S. naval personnel,\u00a0despite American officials\u2019 preoccupation with an increasingly powerful China many thousands of miles away.<\/p>\r\n

Having set assets in place to carry out military operations, Hook and Secretary of State Mike Pompeoembarked on a tour\u00a0of the Middle East and Europe to shore up alliances and isolate Iran.<\/p>\r\n

All this comes on top of the punishing sanctions regime the U.S. has imposed on Iran, breaking a promise made under the Iran nuclear agreement. Targeting Iran\u2019s oil, steel, copper, and other industries, these sanctions have isolated the country\u2019s economy from financial systems around the world. They\u2019ve caused Iran\u2019s currency toplunge in value, which has sharply curtailed access by ordinary Iranians to consumer goods. They\u2019ve made diapers, baby formula, and feminine hygiene products especially difficult to buy, disproportionately\u00a0impacting\u00a0Iranian women and children \u2014 as sanctions typically do.<\/p>\r\n

The U.S. is brutalizing ordinary Iranians, even as its actions and rhetoric are driving toward a more serious military confrontation. Despite this clear pattern, the U.S. media has more typically expressed concern for what seems to be an inept approach by the Trump administration. As the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0editorialized\u00a0a month ago, \u201cthe Trump administration\u2019s lack of a coherent strategy for dealing with Iran has resulted in a series of conflicting messages, all of which contribute to a growing sense of foreboding and unpredictability.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

But we should pay more attention to the administration\u2019s actions than its words. In fact, rhetoric that decries war \u2014 coupled with actions that pursue it \u2014 seems to be the order of the day for Trump and his officials, as well as commentators itching for a U.S. attack.<\/p>\r\n

Perhaps the right-wing\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0columnist Bret Stephens captures the contradictory approach best. He concluded\u00a0a bellicose recent column\u00a0by saying that \u201cnobody wants a war with Iran,\u201d but points out that the U.S. has sunk the Iranian navy before and that \u201cTehran should be put on notice that we are prepared and able to do it again.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

It is simply a lie that the U.S. \u2014 or its hardline government, at least \u2014 does not want war. Politicians\u2019 and commentators\u2019 words may be muddled, but we should be clear: The administration is already devastating Iran with sanctions and is setting the stage for worse. We must do everything we can to stop it.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

Institute for Policy Studies
15 July 2019<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_audio_file":"","_duration_audio_file":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-united-states-of-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28336,"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24102\/revisions\/28336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eurica.ir\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}