Cynical Hawks Exploit North Korea Crisis to Torpedo Iran Agreement

Donald Trump ’sspeech to the UN General Assembly underscored his intention to adopt highly confrontational policies toward both North Korea and Iran.  He threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea in the event of war and re-emphasized Washington’s long-standing determination to compel Pyongyang to renounce its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The president scorned Iran as “an economically depleted rogue state” and described the current multilateral nuclear agreement with Tehran as “an embarrassment” to the United States. If Trump is not merely engaging in bombast, Washington appears to be ginning-up two major foreign policy crises simultaneously.As I discuss in anew article in theNational Interest Online, administration officials and hawks throughout the U.S. foreign policy community increasingly link the issues involving the two countries. Specifically, they seek to use the surge of tensions surrounding Pyongyang ’s behavior to scuttle the P5+1 agreement, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that President Obama and other international leaders negotiated to place limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities.Hawks contend that their goal is to “renegotiate” the JCPOA and produce a new agreement that would put greater restraints on Iran. However, statements past and present from leading neoconservative militants such as former U.S. Ambassador to the UNJohn Bolton, Foreign Policy Institute scholarJoshua Muravchik, and ColonelRalph Peters, the...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs