Iran, US ties: Trump is both a threat and an opportunity

By  Trend

Tehran apparently refuses to view US President Donald Trump as an opportunity and Iranian parliament’s recent motion in response to the new US sanctions would yield no positive results, a US-based expert told Trend.

Iran's lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a motion on Sunday in response to recent US sanctions, voting to boost spending on Tehran's missile program and the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps' defense mechanism, local media outlets reported.

"If I was Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, I would have not accused President Trump of planning to kill the JCPOA. Such accusations are simply not helpful and are indeed counterproductive. Instead, I would have sent a message, even indirectly, to President Trump urging him to stay with the deal and offer to hear his concerns. Tehran must understand that Trump is both a threat and an opportunity. To view him as a threat only could lead to a disastrous situation between the two nations," President American Iranian Council Hooshang Amirahmadi said.

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he did not believe that Iran was living up to the spirit of the 2015 deal to curtail its nuclear weapons program, Reuters reported.

Reacting to remarks by Trump Iran’s Zarif on Friday accused the US President of planning to kill the nuclear accord.

Commenting on a possible decision by Trump to kill the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA aka nuclear deal), Hooshang Amirahmadi said If the US decides to withdraw from the JCPOA, the deal will collapse as Europeans are not able to continue with the deal without the US.

"This is not a deal that each of the countries involved has made with Iran. It is a deal that their collective has made and that collective without the US will not stand. In my opinion, though, the US is not about to withdraw from the deal. Instead, it is trying its best to make Iran exit first by tightening the sanctions grip around Tehran again," he added.

"The ultimate act in this direction will be for Mr. Trump to accuse Iran of violating the terms of the JCPOA and use that as a pretext to refuse certifying that Iran is implementing the deal. In that case, the US' Secondary Sanctions, which were lifted as part of the deal, would be ‘snapped back’ as stipulated in the JCPOA. Even under such a harsh circumstance, the Rouhani Government will try to stay with the deal and take the issue to the UN Security Council," said the expert.

"However, in my opinion, Iran will get nowhere by protesting the US, and the Rouhani Government will be forced by the revolutionaries and a segment of the general public to either walk out of the JCPOA or perhaps withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Such an act will of course create a horrible situation, returning the nuclear crisis to square one, and dangerously worsening US-Iran relations. The relationship is already worse than it was before the JCPOA," Amirahmadi suggested.

"Unfortunately, indications from Tehran suggest that Iran is not ready to view Trump as an opportunity. In response to the latest US sanctions on Iran, the country has just prepared a ‘proposal’ that aims to ‘counter’ American ‘adventurism’ in the region," he said.

"This document will have no positive result for Iran, only negative, even if the system may think that it can help with public consumption," Amirahmadi concluded.