Iran’s nuclear deal just the tip of the iceberg for Trump

Two weeks ago I wrote that North Korea could be able to reach the Pacific Northwest with a nuclear missile in just a few years.

That’s bad enough, but yet another wicked problem awaits the incoming administration.

{mosads}In little more than a decade, Iran will be an industrial-strength nuclear state never more than a few weeks away from having enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon — and that’s if Iran abides by the current nuclear agreement!

The president-elect is clearly aware. Donald Trump has called the deal “stupid,” “a disgrace” and “the worst deal ever negotiated.” But he also hasn’t said that he would rip it up. Rather, he has promised to “dismantle” and “renegotiate” it. 

Look forward to being in DC tomorrow—big crowd expected for our protest against the truly stupid nuclear deal we are making with Iran.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2015

There are three interrelated packages to unwrap here: the actual agreement, which limits Iran’s nuclear activity for the next decade; what happens to Iran’s nuclear program after the deal’s limitations age off; and all the other troublesome things Iran is now doing in the region.

The best of the three is actually the narrowly defined current deal. I could fill the rest of this piece complaining about some provisions — like inspections or Iran coming clean on past activity — but Iran has dismantled centrifuges, reduced its stockpile of enriched uranium and shut down facilities. The country is further away from a bomb now than it would otherwise be.

And everyone who joined the U.S. in negotiating the deal — the European Union, Russia, France and the United Kingdom — have come online that they will not walk this back. We would be badly isolated if we unilaterally tried to dismantle it.

#WorldNews: EU foreign ministers reiterate backing for Iran deal https://t.co/2BGVKuCC7o via @IrishTimesWorld

— The Irish Times (@IrishTimes) November 14, 2016

Better instead to focus on everything else that Iran is doing in the region, such as in Iraq (where Iranian-sponsored militias are terrorizing Sunnis), or in Syria (where Iran and its proxies are the ground force complement to Russian air power), or in Yemen (where Iranians arm and advise Houthi rebels). Better also to focus on Teheran’s continued development of ballistic missiles, which have little value without powerful warheads.

Most of this has gone little remarked, let alone acted, upon by the Obama administration. We seem to be holding any American response to Iran’s increasingly aggressive behavior hostage to the nuclear deal. We won’t push back. We won’t sanction. We won’t even aggressively condemn for fear the Iranians will abandon the nuclear compact. Indeed, Secretary of State John Kerry has tried to facilitate Iran’s reentry into global finance and commerce lest the deal’s benefits not materialize quickly enough to keep Iran in the agreement.

We have accommodated in other ways. Last January, the administration delivered pallets loaded with $400 million to Tehran — initial payments for international claims — timed to the release of four Americans. The State Department said that the events were unrelated. In reality, if an American firm had done something similar for commercial purposes, they would have been hammered for violating the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

But the administration presses on, believing it is playing the long game. It must do what needs to be done to get the nuclear file off the table. No movement with Iran is possible with that unresolved. Then it can work to reintegrate Iran into the global community and allow American-Iranian relations to “normalize.” And all of that is to enable the ultimate goal, the administration’s much desired reduced profile in the region.

Of course, that means accepting growing Iranian influence. Eighteen months ago, President Obama told Tom Friedman of The New York Times that “the truth of the matter is that Iran will be and should be a regional power.” He later told Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic that the Saudis “need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood.”

So the Obama administration has Tehran on a very long leash based on some very ambitious — and optimistic — assumptions. But the Iranians haven’t been “playing nice,” and we are seeing their growing ascendency in the “Shia arc” running from Iran, through Iraq and Assad-controlled Syria, on to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon.

That ascendency — along with ballistic missile tests, unlawful detention of Americans, arms shipments, the creation of a regional “Shia liberation force,” provocative naval strutting in the Persian Gulf — should be the immediate target of American attention.

There are tools at the ready: active naming and shaming of Iranian behavior in international fora; announced changes to American rules of engagement in the Gulf; covert pushback against Iran and Iranian proxies; abandoning the role of Iranian facilitator in commercial markets.

And then there are sanctions, carefully targeted against Iranian behavior outside of the nuclear agreement. After all, Tehran says its behavior catalogued above is not covered by the deal. Neither is our response. 

#Iran continues to finance terrorism, test-fire ballistic missiles, and violate the nuclear agreement. https://t.co/opEH7f0m88

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) November 27, 2016

Here the new president will find bipartisan majorities in Congress ready to support him. Many are still angry that the nuclear deal was agreed without their approval. Even more are offended by Iran’s behavior.

Of course, there is always the risk that a strong American response will tempt Tehran to threaten to walk, announce it intends to walk or even actually walk away from the nuclear compact. But that would be its own decision to make — and not an easy one.

In any event, President-elect Trump also needs to actively engage international actors in the nuclear deal’s most problematic aspect: what happens in 10 years when even a compliant Iran is a threshold nuclear state. He shouldn’t have to accept his predecessor’s executive decision to concede that status to a messianic state that has shown no signs it has changed its ways.

Gen. Michael Hayden is a former director of the CIA and the National Security Agency.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.