Mike Waltz confirmed again that the Trump administration’s demands for Iran are extreme:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Can you clarify? Is the U.S. seeking the dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program, or verification, like what President Obama put in place back in 2015 and President Trump pulled out of?
MIKE WALTZ: Full dismantlement [bold mine-DL]. Iran has to give up its program in a way that the entire world can see.
Recent remarks from Trump’s Middle East envoy seemed to suggest that the administration would be satisfied with an agreement that ensures that Iran’s nuclear program remained peaceful, but Waltz shot that idea down without qualification. The administration’s ultimatum to Iran is every bit as unreasonable as we thought, and the Iranian government is not going to agree to such humiliating terms. As we mark the 22nd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq this month, it is alarming to hear the drumbeat for another unnecessary and illegal war in the Middle East.
The demands that the administration delivered to Iran in Trump’s letter were far-reaching, and they touched on issues far beyond the nuclear program itself. In addition to telling Iran to give up domestic enrichment and their entire nuclear program, the president’s letter said that they are supposed to halt all support for allied groups throughout the region, and they must withdraw all their forces from Iraq and Syria. According to the Emirati official who delivered the letter, Trump gave Iran two months to comply with these demands or they would face “large-scale military action.”
This is unfortunately consistent with what we have been hearing for the last two months. Last month, it was reported that Trump had reached an understanding with Netanyahu on Iran that paved the way for military action. On a related note, Trump appeared to be on board with seeking a “Libya-style” dismantling of Iran’s entire nuclear program. This is such an obvious non-starter for Iran that we have to assume that the administration wants this to give themselves a pretext for war.
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Daniel Larison is a contributing editor for Antiwar.com and maintains his own site at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.
