It’s not something I thought I’d be writing four months into his second term, but U.S. President Donald Trump could be on the brink of doing something great. After several rounds of talks between the United States and Iran, he seems to be moving closer to an agreement that would cap Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. If successful, this would prevent Iran from obtaining the necessary materials for a bomb and avert a potentially devastating war.
On June 2, Axios reported that special envoy Steve Witkoff had presented Iranian negotiators with a set of “preliminary ideas” to guide the next round of more detailed talks. Among those ideas was a scenario in which Iran would reduce its domestic enrichment of uranium to only those levels needed for civilian uses until uranium could be provided by a consortium.
Bafflingly, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, saw an opportunity to criticize Trump using the arguments of the hawkish right. “When it comes to negotiating with the terrorist government of Iran, Trump’s all over the lot. One day he sounds tough, the next day he’s backing off,” Schumer said in a video message after the Axios report dropped.
Mischaracterizing the reported interim deal as “a secret side deal” that “lets Iran get away with everything,” Schumer went for the kill: “If TACO Trump is already folding, the American public should know about it. No side deals.” (TACO is an acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” but it’s unclear what he’s chickening out on here—war with Iran?)
Schumer’s attack on Trump’s diplomacy is bad politics. A recent Brookings Institution poll showed that a majority of Americans—and supermajorities of both Democrats and independents—support a nuclear agreement with Iran. But it’s also bad policy, the latest example of a Democratic Party leadership that can’t break free from hawkish habits when it comes to the Middle East, despite the consistent failure of those habits to produce better security for Americans or people in the region.
In his speech in Saudi Arabia in May, Trump sought to turn the page on decades of U.S. interventionism and overreach. Singled out for opprobrium were the Republican Party’s neoconservatives, who backed the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere that Trump decried in both of his successful presidential campaigns.
He has a point. There’s probably no faction in modern U.S. politics whose ideas have done more to undermine the security and prosperity of the American people than the neocons. These were the loudest voices in Washington, and indeed inside Trump’s own administration, pushing him to withdraw from former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal in 2018. Curbing their influence is a good thing for everyone.
Democrats need a similar reckoning with the failed Middle East policies of their own party. Part of that reckoning requires acknowledging the Biden administration’s catastrophic legacy in the region. Rather than rejoining the Iran nuclear agreement as he promised, President Joe Biden slow-walked diplomacy in apparent hope for a “longer and stronger” deal, squandering an important early opportunity.
Rather than upholding human rights and international law as he said he would on the campaign trail, Biden offered unconditional support for Israel’s still ongoing assault on Gaza. Driven by fear of Chinese inroads in the region, he also embraced corrupt, repressive regimes such as the Saudis and Emiratis, leaving both the United States and the region less stable and less secure as a result.
A better Democratic Middle East policy should recommit to the values that Biden abandoned. It should reject the protection-racket mentality that characterizes Trump’s overall foreign policy, which represents far more continuity with decades of U.S. foreign policy than many in Washington want to admit.
Democrats should envision a new relationship with the region that, rather than continuing to invest in repression, invests in strong civil societies, climate cooperation, pandemic preparedness, and anti-corruption and kleptocracy tools that will advance Americans’ security and prosperity. The past decades have shown that the United States has neither the capacity nor the right to attempt to transform the region. But Washington can still choose policies that support and strengthen the best actors rather than the worst ones.
There are more than enough targets for Democratic criticism within Trump’s foreign policy. His explicit support for ethnic cleansing in Gaza, his gratuitous attacks on the United States’ European allies, his Muslim ban 2.0, and his use of his office as an open-air market for corruption are all things a responsible opposition should rightly combat; just look at Sen. Chris Murphy’s recent remarks at the Center for American Progress.
Positive steps that cut against the old hawkish mindset, such as diplomacy with Iran or easing sanctions on Syria’s new government, are worthy of—if not outright support—at least a wait-and-see approach. Meanwhile, Democrats should seize the opportunity to offer something more—and better.
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