{"id":13300,"date":"2017-12-15T07:15:27","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T13:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=13300"},"modified":"2017-12-15T07:15:27","modified_gmt":"2017-12-15T13:15:27","slug":"iranian-politics-ctd-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/12\/15\/iranian-politics-ctd-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian Politics, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

I lost track of international doings lately, but I guess I’m not surprised that Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem has aided Iran<\/a>. AL Monitor’s<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Reza Marashi has the report<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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After US President Donald Trump\u2019s ill-advised\u00a0decision<\/a>\u00a0to recognize Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital, some\u00a0headlines<\/a>\u00a0have noted\u00a0that Iran\u2019s hard-liners have been empowered as a result. While that may be true \u2014 and extremists in Tehran certainly\u00a0claim as much<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 it also paints an incomplete picture. Trump\u2019s Jerusalem fiasco has, in fact, also been a boon to President Hassan Rouhani and his administration. In other words, it has in several key ways empowered the Islamic Republic as a whole \u2014 and not any particular faction or group.<\/p>\n

First, Iran\u2019s political system will now have an easier time realigning its ideological and geopolitical proclivities. This will essentially solidify the executive branch\u00a0as Iranian stakeholders unify against Trump\u2019s extremist activities in the Middle East. Before the Jerusalem announcement, Tehran was more\u00a0measured<\/a>\u00a0in playing the anti-Israel card relative to its bombast during the presidency of conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013). This was because Iran\u2019s geopolitical goal of escaping American and Israeli-led efforts to render it a pariah required tempering its ideological inclination to spout off anti-Israel tirades, which score brownie points among Arab public opinion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So President Trump has succeeded in healing a rift in Iran, and not to forget that he also decertified<\/a> Iran for the JCPOA<\/strong><\/em> – despite the protests of our allies, who now will probably not abide by any attempts on our part to re-apply sanctions to Iran. But sanctions was just what Trump was demanding – back then. From<\/a> The Atlantic<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n

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After months of speculation, here\u2019s the Trump administration\u2019s policy toward the nuclear deal with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action: \u201cWe will stay in the JCPOA, but the president will decertify under INARA,\u201d said Rex Tillerson, the U.S. secretary of state, referring to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. What this essentially means is that the JCPOA is safe for now, but Congress could amend existing U.S. legislation to make it easier to impose sanctions on Iran. If that doesn\u2019t happen, Trump said, \u201cthe agreement will be terminated.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Who knows what he wants now. Reza’s conclusion?<\/p>\n

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The ultimate irony of the Jerusalem debacle is once again that Iran has been given the upper hand without having lifted a finger. Indeed, with the peace process dead, most of the world is blaming Trump,\u00a0Israel and Saudi Arabia<\/a>\u00a0for tearing the region apart. But Jerusalem is only the latest in a long line of missteps\u00a0over the past year that Iran has capitalized on. This has left Rouhani in a position in which he can now work across the political spectrum to reconnect the Islamic Republic\u2019s ideological goal of opposing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory with its geopolitical goal of avoiding international isolation \u2014 with increased international support for both objectives. Iran may not have drawn it up this way, but it will gladly accept the freebies being handed out by Washington, Tel Aviv and Riyadh.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

It’ll take a generation to regain the “soft power” we used to have – and the influence that went with it. We really need to boost this kook out of office. Too bad his Vice-President isn’t showing signs of more mature political judgment. Don’t forget this blunder on his part<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I lost track of international doings lately, but I guess I’m not surprised that Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem has aided Iran. AL Monitor’s\u00a0Reza Marashi has the report: After US President Donald Trump\u2019s ill-advised\u00a0decision\u00a0to recognize Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital, some\u00a0headlines\u00a0have noted\u00a0that Iran\u2019s hard-liners have been empowered as a result. While that \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13306,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13300\/revisions\/13306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}