You could call it a hard line from the former US president. With the stakes around Iran’s nuclear programme redefined by his latest words, Trump told reporters on the periphery of the G7 in France that if Tehran makes a move for a nuke, ‘all hell will rain down.’ He made sure to link that to a deal he has just put on the table to close off that option.
What set him off
For Trump, this is the one thing that counts. ‘The only thing that really matters to me is Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, and it says it loud and clear,’ he said in Evian-les-Bains, presenting the accord as the way to put an end to it.
He doesn’t mince words when he puts it side by side with what came before. ‘This deal is a wall to a nuclear weapon,’ he said of the new terms, while the Obama-era pact was ‘a road to a nuclear weapon.’ Make no mistake, he added, if the Islamic Republic tries to get one, ‘all hell will rain down.’
How the deal is put together
In Trump’s view, you have a solid barrier to weaponisation here and the next round of talks should be ‘actually easier.’ Don’t expect any handouts from Washington, though. He put to rest any talk of the US ‘investing any money in Iran’ as ‘ridiculous.’
It’s a ‘fair’ and ‘good’ deal, he says, and he sees a more level-headed side to Iran’s leadership in the wake of recent trouble. ‘I think they have rational leadership now,’ he observed, of the kind he once thought ‘totally irrational’ but who are ‘now gone.’
Where the region stands
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani was there to show his support for the push, and he didn’t hold back in his thanks to Trump for the leadership at a ‘very critical time.’ The emir called the deal a work in progress – ‘there is still a lot of work to be done’ – and made it known Doha is ready to step in if needed.
That sort of exchange is why Qatar is such a key player in Gulf affairs. Trump gave them some of the credit for the momentum, part of a broader plan to stand firm on non-proliferation while cooling things off where you can.
Israel in the mix
Even while touting the agreement, Trump had a word or two about an Israeli strike in Lebanon that happened to come down at the same time. ‘I didn’t like’ the timing, he said. His issue was with the whole campaign against Hezbollah and the price paid by civilians: ‘You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody.’
He even put in a word for Syria being in a better spot to handle Hezbollah. But the US-Iran understanding is going to hold, he insisted, putting the fighting in Lebanon in its place as ‘the minor war’ next to the prospect of a nuclear Iran.
And he let Israel know where it stands with Washington. ‘Without me there would be no Israel, because no other president was willing to do what I did,’ he said. He wants to see more responsibility on the Lebanon front, but his ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are intact.
The bottom line
There is an audience for this: to put off Iran, to keep the Gulf on board, and to put a lid on what might spook de-escalation with Israel. It will be up to the next phase to see if the verification and enforcement can be made to stick, and if the other conflicts in the area can be kept in check.
Some of the highlights from the meeting:
– If Iran goes for a nuke, ‘all hell will rain down’.
– The new deal is ‘a wall to a nuclear weapon’.
– No US funds for Iran, according to Trump.
– A nudge to Israel to be more responsible in Lebanon.
It will be interesting to see if they can make a headline into something that lasts, and if the action in Lebanon and Syria doesn’t overtake the nuclear file that, for Trump, is the one that counts.
