With his declaration Friday that the Iran nuclear deal is not in
the national interest, President Donald Trump may have put us on the road to
war with Iran.
Indeed,
it is easier to see the collisions that are coming than to see how we get off
this road before the shooting starts.
After
"de-certifying" the nuclear agreement, signed by all five permanent
members of the Security Council, Trump gave Congress 60 days to reimpose the
sanctions that it lifted when Teheran signed.
If
Congress does not reimpose those sanctions and kill the deal, Trump threatens to
kill it himself.
Why?
Did Iran violate the terms of the agreement? Almost no one argues that — not
the UN nuclear inspectors, not our NATO allies, not even Trump's national
security team.
Iran
shipped all its 20 percent enriched uranium out of the country, shut down most
of its centrifuges, and allowed intrusive inspections of all nuclear
facilities. Even before the deal, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies said they could
find no evidence of an Iranian nuclear bomb program.
Indeed,
if Iran wanted a bomb, Iran would have had a bomb.
She
remains a non-nuclear-weapons state for a simple reason: Iran's vital national
interests dictate that she remain so.
As
the largest Shiite nation with 80 million people, among the most advanced in
the Mideast, Iran is predestined to become the preeminent power in the Persian
Gulf. But on one condition: She avoid the great war with the United States that
Saddam Hussein failed to avoid.
Iran
shut down any bomb program it had because it does not want to share Iraq's fate
of being smashed and broken apart into Persians, Azeris, Arabs, Kurds and
Baluch, as Iraq was broken apart by the Americans into Sunni, Shiite, Turkmen,
Yazidis and Kurds.
Tehran
does not want war with us. It is the War Party in Washington and its Middle
East allies — Bibi Netanyahu and the Saudi royals — who hunger to have the
United States come over and smash Iran.
Thus,
the Congressional battle to kill, or not to kill, the Iran nuclear deal shapes
up as decisive in the Trump presidency.
Yet,
even earlier collisions with Iran may be at hand.
In
Syria's east, U.S.-backed and Kurd-led Syrian Democratic Forces are about to
take Raqqa. But as we are annihilating ISIS in its capital, the Syrian army is
driving to capture Deir Ezzor, capital of the province that sits astride the
road from Baghdad to Damascus.
Its
capture by Bashar Assad's army would ensure that the road from Baghdad to
Damascus to Hezbollah in Lebanon remains open.
If
the U.S. intends to use the SDF to seize the border area, we could find
ourselves in a battle with the Syrian army, Shiite militia, the Iranians, and
perhaps even the Russians.
Are
we up for that?
In
Iraq, the national army is moving on oil-rich Kirkuk province and its capital
city. The Kurds captured Kirkuk after the Iraqi army fled from the ISIS
invasion. Why is a U.S.-trained Iraqi army moving against a U.S.-trained
Kurdish army?
The
Kurdistan Regional Government voted last month to secede. This raised alarms in
Turkey and Iran, as well as Baghdad. An independent Kurdistan could serve as a
magnet to Kurds in both those countries.
Baghdad's
army is moving on Kirkuk to prevent its amputation from Iraq in any civil war
of secession by the Kurds.
Where
does Iran stand in all of this?
In
the war against ISIS, they were de facto allies. For ISIS, like al-Qaida, is
Sunni and hates Shiites as much as it hates Christians. But if the U.S. intends
to use the SDF to capture the Iraqi-Syrian border, Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and
Russia could all be aligned against us.
Are
we ready for such a clash?
We
Americans are coming face to face with some new realities.
The
people who are going to decide the future of the Middle East are the people who
live there. And among these people, the future will be determined by those most
willing to fight, bleed and die for years and in considerable numbers to
realize that future.
We
Americans, however, are not going to send another army to occupy another
country, as we did Kuwait in 1991, Afghanistan in 2001, and Iraq in 2003.
Bashar
Assad, his army and air force backed by Vladimir Putin's air power, the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, and Hezbollah won the Syrian civil war
because they were more willing to fight and die to win it. And, truth be told,
all had far larger stakes there than did we.
We
do not live there. Few Americans are aware of what is going on there. Even
fewer care.
Our
erstwhile allies in the Middle East naturally want us to fight their
21st-century wars, as the Brits got us to help fight their 20th-century wars.
But
Donald Trump was not elected to do that. Or so at least some of us thought.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's
White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided
America Forever."
