Tehran’s Retaliation, Trump’s Reply Early returns show deterrence beats appeasement with Iran.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tehrans-retaliation-trumps-reply-11578528961?mod=opinion_lead_pos1
Maybe the Apocalypse isn’t upon us after all. The lesson after Iran’s missile strike on U.S. bases in Iraq early Wednesday is that deterrence seems to be working.
More than a dozen ballistic missiles hit two U.S. bases in northern and western Iraq, but no Americans or Iraqis were killed in the attack. Iraq says Iran gave advance warning, so U.S. and Iraqi troops had time to disperse or seek shelter. Iran has made advances in missile targeting, as we learned in the attack on Saudi oil facilities. Yet this time the missiles seemed not to have been precise.
All of this suggests that Iran tried to make a show of hitting back at the U.S. for the killing of terror chief Qasem Soleimani while trying to avoid killing Americans. The latter seems to be the red line that President Trump has drawn for an American military response, and Iran knows the U.S. could eliminate much of its military and industrial capacity even from a standoff distance.
“Iran took & concluded proportionate measures in self-defense,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif tweeted. “We do not seek escalation or war.” Iranian state TV reported 80 Americans killed, but that was propaganda to impress the loyalists at home and its proxy militias abroad.
Mr. Trump responded Wednesday morning with strong but also conciliatory remarks from the White House. “Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned,” the President said. He announced unspecified “additional punishing economic sanctions” while the U.S. considers other responses to the attack.
His dual goal seemed to be to reinforce deterrence while also offering a path for Iran to renegotiate the 2015 nuclear deal and become a normal country. Speaking directly “to the people and leaders of Iran,” he said, “the United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.”
Such a change of mind in Tehran may be a long shot, at least until the U.S. presidential election in November. Then again, this offers more hope of progress than did the appeasement strategy that Barack Obama and John Kerry carried out with their 2015 nuclear deal. Soleimani used that financial windfall to spread revolution. Mr. Trump was right when he said Wednesday that “the missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last Administration.”
All of this was more productive than Mr. Trump’s threats and Twitter bluster earlier in the week. He looked deliberate and in control, albeit still forceful, defying the image of a reckless, impulsive Commander in Chief eager for war that his opponents are hoping to campaign against.
The showdown with Iran is far from over, and the mullahs may strike again in the coming months using proxy forces that give it deniability. On that score the President missed an opportunity to make clear that an attack on Americans by an Iranian-linked group would be treated as an attack by Iran. The immediate battleground will continue to be Iraq. Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should focus on maintaining the U.S. presence to help patriotic Iraqis resist becoming another satrapy of Tehran.
The other challenge is Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, and Mr. Trump asked the U.K., Germany, France, Russia and China to join him in seeking to renegotiate the 2015 pact. The latter two won’t agree, but it’s past time for the Western Europeans to realize that the deal has fatal flaws including its early end date within a decade.
Combined with Mr. Trump’s renewed deterrence and “maximum pressure,” a united front might convince Iran’s leaders that they are better off negotiating a new deal and a path out of economic isolation instead of pursuing the dead end of Soleimani’s Mideast revolution.
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