For many years prior to the nuclear agreement with Iran the Mullah’s used “sanctions” as the excuse for a poorly-performing economy.
Inflation? Blame Uncle Sam.
No jobs? Blame the west.
This excuse resonated with the Iranian people because there was a great deal of truth. If Iran couldn’t sell its oil or borrow on international markets to finance economic growth, it was difficult to create a robust economy.
The Iran nuclear deal — hated by Trump because it was an “Obama” achievement — brought an end to this excuse. Inside Iran proponents of the deal undermined its critics by promising the masses that the deal would lift economic sanctions, and the national economy could start finally living up to its potential.
The deal raised public expectations, and those expectations were frustrated when the promised economic boom failed to materialize.
Here’s the dilemma for Trump: if he kills the nuclear deal, he hands the Mullahs a political gift by creating a new excuse for a weak economy. That would pull the rug out from under the current wave or protest — a wave cheered on by none other than Donald Trump.
If Trump wants the disappointed expectations currently fueling the Iranian protests to get stronger and spread (as they did in Eastern Europe in 1989) he has to keep his tiny little hands off the Nuclear Deal.
He has to choose — live with Obama’s Nuclear Deal and enjoy the growing popular opposition to the Mullahs or kill the deal and, in doing so, take the air out of the protests movement. He can’t do both — he can’t have a dead deal and a living protest movement.
Trump has shown time and again he has poor impulse control, and little capacity to wait it out for delayed rewards based on patient strategy. Killing the deal gives him instant gratification, allowing economic discontent to slowly grow and slowly reach a tipping point requires big-picture, presidential thinking.
I’m guessing he goes for the sugar high, and — in doing so — actually entrenches the regime rather than bringing about change… and all without a lesson learned, because Donald Trump doesn’t learn lessons when he falls short, he simply blames others for the failure.
