Will he, won’t he? US President Donald Trump’s public flirtation with formally entering the war against Iran has kept the global diplomatic community on its toes. After days of warmongering, threatening Iran that his patience was wearing thin, Trump stumped all on Thursday after his press secretary said the President would wait two weeks before making a decision.
Unpredictable as he is, Trump’s move has sparked speculation if the two-week deadline was a carefully thought-out ploy to hoodwink Iran and get it to let its guard down or genuinely give Tehran a chance to come to the negotiating table over its nuclear program.
PLOY TO DECEIVE IRAN?
While, officially, Trump justified the two-week window to give diplomacy one last try, some experts underscored that it might be a bid to deceive the Iranians and make them complacent.
“That could be cover for a decision to strike immediately. Maybe this is a very clever ruse to lull the Iranians into a sense of complacency,” James Stavridis, a retired Navy admiral and the former supreme US commander in Europe, told CNN.
Another expert told the NYT that it could also be a plan to buy time for the US to bolster its military options in the Middle East.
BUY TIME TO DEPLOY MILITARY ASSETS
The US has so far not been directly involved in Israel’s ‘Rising Lion’, a military operation that it started last week to snuff out Iran’s nuclear program.
However, US fighter jets and refuelling tankers have been deployed to the region. The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier is stationed in the Arabian Sea with four warships.
The two-week window will give the US enough time to get its second aircraft carrier in the region – in case it goes on to attack Iran. Moreover, it also gives Israel more time to take out the air defences around the Fordow enrichment plant, Iran’s secretive and most fortified nuclear site. This will go a long way in mitigating risks to American forces.
Fordow, which has the capability to quickly enrich uranium to levels close to weapons-grade, is located 80 to 90 meters below the surface. Due to its location, Israel doesn’t have the ammunition required to destroy the plant. Only the US does, with its 30,000-pound “bunker buster” munition.
GETTING IRAN TO NEGOTIATING TABLE
The second probable reason for opening a two-week negotiating window is to give a substantial chance to negotiations with Iran and persuade it to immediately halt enrichment of uranium.
“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” a White House statement attributed to Trump said.
The toning down of the rhetoric comes after Trump asked Iranians to “immediately evacuate Tehran”, called Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei an “easy target” and demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender”.
A section of analysts said it was the US president’s way of giving diplomacy one more chance. Trump’s eyes, for now, will be on the meeting in Geneva between foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the European Union and Iran’s Abbas Araghchi.
The Washington Post quoted a diplomatic official as saying that the European countries would seek to mediate a “take it or leave it deal” with Iran, in exchange for “regime survival”. Trump has repeatedly insisted that any deal with Iran would have to result in “no enrichment of uranium”.
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said while the fall of Iran’s regime was not Tel Aviv’s objective, it could ultimately be a consequence of the ongoing conflict.
European negotiators have previously suggested a deal could include having an international team visiting Iran and dismantling its enrichment facilities, The Washington Post reported.
OVER 600 DEAD IN IRAN
The conflict, which is now in its eighth day, has killed over 600 people in Iran.
The trigger for Israel’s unprecedented attack was the International Atomic Energy Agency’s declaration that Iran was in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and was dangerously close to acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran, however, has insisted that its nuclear activities were only for civilian use.
However, the Trump administration and Israel have not bought the argument. On Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in “a couple of weeks” if given the go-ahead by its Supreme Leader Khamenei.
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