How Trump’s disruptive tactics with Iran bring both hope and fear

The key to addressing the volatility in West Asia is to address Iran’s nuclear programme and find credible and sustainable ways to settle the century-old Palestinian problem, for which a positive shift in the mindset of Tehran, Tel Aviv and Washington DC is a prerequisite.

Each one has a strategic incentive as well. More specifically, instead of threats, counter threats, escalations in rhetoric and the ever-prevailing Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) syndrome, an upbeat, unorthodox President Donald Trump, a boisterous and trigger-happy Benjamin Netanyahu and an excessive hardliner Ayatollah Khamenei will have to sanely and judiciously introspect and deliberate whether the kind of policies they have pursued or are following are making their countries, people and the world, especially West Asia, safer and secure.

I would argue the opposite. All actors in the region and the world are worried. Yet the high-decibel bombastic threats and statements have increased in frequency to no avail, as the hardened positions become the natural outcome, however destructive and dangerous these might be. Deep-seated trust deficits, deepening hostility and the absence of global enforceable leadership unfortunately do not give cause for confidence.

More from Opinion

Sergio Gor’s senate hearing signals the future of Indo-American ties How Trump’s ‘War on Drugs’ buildup against Venezuela has a hidden agenda

While Iran, being an NPT signatory, pursued a dubious nuclear programme, the eventual efforts made by some European countries and the US with the Chinese and Russian support yielded a nuclear deal (JCPOA) in 2015 under then-POTUS Barack Obama, much to the chagrin of Israelis as well as the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, which did and do not wish Iran to go nuclear or buy time to just do that.

Then President Trump’s first tenure came, and he quashed and pulled out of the US agreement to the deal in 2018 and imposed even more severe and far-reaching sanctions on Tehran. This reversal may have pleased Israel since it was able to maintain its regional open secret of nuclear supremacy.

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

How army remains Pakistan’s biggest business house

60 years on, why 1965 India–Pakistan war still matters

Saudis, who, along with 27 Sunni countries and though with the connivance of the US, launched an unwinnable war against the intractable Houthis in Yemen, also wanted to show their displeasure with the US for unilaterally agreeing to the nuclear deal with Iran, as the US has been their security guarantor and largest weapons supplier.

Helpless Europeans also lost their credibility with Iran since they were unable to provide sanctions relief by creating their own version of SWIFT, which really never took off, much to the frustration of the Iranians, for whom the JCPOA continued to be operative in a literal sense and gave them the freedom to enrich more uranium and develop centrifuges, taking steps towards their strategic objective.

During the Biden administration, they secured occasional relief through indirect yet inconclusive talks. Efforts were further deteriorated due to the Iranian and US domestic situation and the Israel-Hamas war, as well as the Russia-Ukraine war, and Tehran’s relations with Moscow became far more strategic during this period.

The ten-year JCPOA will end in October this year; hence, some action by the Europeans, Americans and Iranians is being witnessed. Apparently the French, German and UK foreign ministers discussed this in Brussels with Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, on the sidelines of the NATO meeting earlier in the week.

Early on, while reiterating that he will not allow Iran to secure or develop nuclear weapons, Trump has indicated that he does not want war with Tehran and would prefer to sort the issues through discussion. Both sides seem to have concurred with indirect talks. He even wrote a letter to President Masoud Pezeshkian delivered by the UAE’s presidential adviser Anwar Gargash, but its threatening tone provided a platform for a public spat among the leaders once again.

In the meantime, to put pressure on Iran to come to the table, howsoever immature it may be, Trump started bombing Houthis – the closest remaining non-state actor and arm of the Iranian regime, which has caused havoc for commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

In the wake of the threats to Iran being the next target, either by them or by Tel Aviv, created an unprecedented response and pushback from the region and other major powers like Russia and China. Since Tehran has not minced any words regarding the retaliation on US bases and assets in the region, all Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia have conveyed to their security partner in the Trump administration that they will not allow their airspaces to be used to attack Iran.

Of course, all through the last year and a half of the Israel-Hamas war, the region and the world have tried to avoid the Iran-Israel escalation, which would be disastrous for the region and beyond. Despite fundamental differences, Iran has been cautiously integrated into the regional matrix by major Arab powers. Post-2023 rapprochement engineered by Baghdad, Muscat and Beijing is a testament to keeping the differences within the threshold. In fact, all regional majors have begun to follow greater strategic autonomy in their foreign relations while enhancing their strategic value with major powers.

Saudi Arabia is mediating and providing comfort for Americans, Russians, and Ukrainians to talk to effect a ceasefire; Qatar and Egypt are playing a critical role in ending the latest Israel-Hamas war while working with others for reconstruction in the day-after scenario; and the UAE and Oman are acting as powerful conduits between Tehran and Washington. The Act East policy of the Arab majors, focusing on their key markets and partners in Asia, including India, China, Japan and South Korea, while keeping and even increasing their stakes in the US and the West, is here to stay.

Even as President Trump remains engaged with West Asia like his first term, he has inherited a vastly different Tenure 2.0. His attention is focused more on domestic issues and the quick delivery of promises he made to Americans, and the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars have turned into prestigious closing points for him while trying to speak from a position of strength against the conventional wars in general in his unorthodox style.

Even as he has turned into a disruptor number one and champion of weaponising tariffs, whether it will expedite a more balanced global order and sort out the ongoing wars and conflicts remains to be seen. But his efforts, even in an unconventional way, continue unabated.

Hopefully, the second visit of Netanyahu to the White House on Monday and President Trump’s upcoming visit to Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi and possibly a quick dash to Tel Aviv will be conducted in a way to create a regional modus vivendi and not deepen differences. Perhaps Trump is the only one capable of using unconventionality against the prevailing conventional disruptive equations among these key actors in West Asia.

The author is the former Indian Ambassador to Jordan, Libya and Malta and is currently a Distinguished Fellow with Vivekananda International Foundation. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.