On Wednesday, the White House officially put Iran “on notice” in response to a recent ballistic missile test. As a candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly said the United States would stand up to Iranian aggression and even pull out of the international nuclear agreement, leading some in Washington to believe that the official warning should be taken seriously.
National security advisor Michael Flynn stood at the podium in the White House briefing room and called the Iranian ballistic missile test “provocative,” warning of unspecified consequences for the action. He further stated that the missile launch was in violation of the UN Security Council resolution (2231), which calls on Iran to halt all ballistic missile activity. Further, he denounced Iranian support for Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have attacked Saudi warships deployed in the Red Sea.
“As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice,” Flynn said.
The initial statement provided few details to explain how the Trump administration intended to respond to Iran. In a background briefing following the announcement, an administration official said discussions were underway to calculate the appropriate response. “We are considering a whole range of options. We’re in a deliberative process,” the official stated.
Notable in the administration’s remarks was their insistence that the ballistic missile test would not impact the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which created a series of international technical safeguards to significantly slow Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. The administration’s statement may have provided some relief for those who support maintaining the agreement, which candidate Trump repeatedly referred to as “weak” and promised to “tear up” upon taking office.
The initial statement provided few details to explain how the Trump administration intended to respond to Iran. In a background briefing following the announcement, an administration official said discussions were underway to calculate the appropriate response. “We are considering a whole range of options. We’re in a deliberative process,” the official stated.
Notable in the administration’s remarks was their insistence that the ballistic missile test would not impact the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which created a series of international technical safeguards to significantly slow Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. The administration’s statement may have provided some relief for those who support maintaining the agreement, which candidate Trump repeatedly referred to as “weak” and promised to “tear up” upon taking office.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman and Trump confidante, Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) told Sinclair Broadcast Group that he happened to be at the White House talking to administration officials about U.S. policy to Iran before Flynn made the announcement.
Corker noted that he sees “tremendous opportunities” for Congress and the new administration to work together to address Iran’s violations of international agreements, including the ballistic missile tests, support for international terrorist organizations and “other nefarious activities in the region.”
Unlike the Obama administration’s approach to Iran, Corker said of Trump, “I don’t think it’s going to be just rhetoric. I think you are going to see a series of actions that take place.”
On the nuclear deal, Corker pointed to reports of Iran already falling out of compliance with the JCPOA (violating a threshold related to heavy water used in nuclear reactors). “If they continue to violate in the way they are, it should scuttle the deal, but I think what they’re going to see is a significant push-back by the U.S. government,” he concluded.
Laicie Heeley is a foreign policy expert at the Stimson Center and has focused extensively on U.S. relations with Iran. She noted that within the first two weeks of the Trump administration, he has already fulfilled a number of promises that many experts dismissed as simply campaign rhetoric. “Just in the very short time that Trump has been president, we’ve seen that few of the wild and crazy things he has said have actually been wild and crazy things. He means most of them., she advised.
Those who dismissed Trump’s campaign pledges to shut down immigration and refugees coming from Muslim countries, to pull out the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to build a wall on the Mexican border, were all proven wrong within days of Trump taking the oath of office.
“So the things that Trump is tweeting might seem insignificant, just by virtue of being on Twitter,” Heeley said of Trump’s recent statements on Iran. “But in fact he means them. He intends to carry these things out in one way or another.”
Early on Thursday morning, Trump was on his personal Twitter handle echoing the statement of his national security advisor and criticizing the “terrible” Iran nuclear agreement, which he said provided Iran with a $150 billion “life-line.”
Whether or not the Trump administration will go so far as pulling out of the JCPOA on account of Iran’s recent provocations is still up in the air. But ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md. ) does not expect Trump will go that far.
“I don’t believe you’re going to see him pull out of the JCPOA,” Cardin stated, explaining that the agreement was made by a concert of international powers who still strongly support the deal. For more than two years, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, and the European Union hashed out the agreement with Iran. It required heavy lifting from America’s key partners in Europe, as well as buy-in from regional partners in the Middle East.
Cardin confirmed that during personal meeting with allies from the Middle East and Europe over the past ten days, none of them had been consulted about the Trump’s Iran policy.
“I don’t think they have a coherent strategy for Iran,” Cardin said of the Trump team. “You cant have a very effective Iranian strategy without working with particularly our European allies and our Middle East allies. So, none of that has been done.”
So far Tehran has largely dismissed the warning. Ali Akbar Velayati, a foreign policy advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei fired back at the Trump administration, calling the threat “empty.”
“This is not the first time that an inexperienced person has threatened Iran,” Velayati said. “Iran is the strongest power in the region and has a lot of political, economic and military power … America should be careful about making empty threats to Iran.”
Peter Huessy, the director of strategic deterrent studies at the Mitchel Institute of Aerospace Studies noted that, unfortunately, there is some truth in Iran’s statement in response to the administration’s threat. “I hate to say it, but the United States as not responded forcefully, in many respects and at many times to what the Iranians have done,” he said, citing inadequate policies from administrations and congresses going back 38 years.
Over the years, U.S. military leaders and intelligence experts have testified to direct Iranian aggression against the United States and its allies, as well as extensive support for proxies from Hezbollah to the Taliban to Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) supplying roadside bombs to the Iraqi insurgents beginning in 2003.
“They are at war with us,” Huessy said. “I know a lot of people cringe at the use of the word, but I think it’s real.”
The question then becomes, what is the appropriate response? Huessy did not advocate any particular course of action, but outlined a list of options. One step would be to ratchet up economic sanctions, which have regularly been used to try to curb Iranian behavior, or work to shut down oil flows coming out of and into Iran. Another option is interdicting Iranian ships carrying weapons to proxies in Yemen, for example, under the international agreement to curb weapons trafficking, the Proliferation Security Initiative.
On the military side, there are deterrent options, including increasing U.S. ballistic missile defense in the region, or deploying additional Navy and Air Force assets to the region.
“There is no easy answer, there is no obvious answer, but there are some obvious things to do,” Huessy said. “My hope is that the administration is going to sit down, hopefully with some advice from our elected officials, military and civilian folks, and calibrate what exactly can we do to stop this, because I think that is what it means when they say, ‘You are on notice.’”
Some are still hoping for additional clarity on what the next steps will be for the Trump White House and Iran. According to Heeley, the statement putting Iran on notice “means everything and nothing.” Read one way, it is simply a measured response to a specific provocation, which is what the administration indicated by saying the ballistic missile test would not impact the nuclear deal.
On the other hand, the Trump administration is wholly untested in handling international incidents, and Iran hardliner Mike Flynn is a wildcard who is leading the president’s national security team. “So it can also be taken as one threat among many that is going to build a case for war,” Heeley warned. “That really is the concern.”
After two weeks of the Trump presidency, the vulnerable period of government transition is not yet over. Donald Trump still lacks the infrastructure at the State Department, the Department of Defense, the Treasury, and across his whole government to effectively respond to a crisis.
“If he does mean this as a red line leading to war, how does he plan to carry that out?” Heeley said. She noted that U.S. Central Command, in charge of the military operations in the Middle East, was not informed about the notice, and last week there was a “mass exodus” of experienced senior State Department personnel.
“He is really wholly unprepared to back up these kinds of statements,” she asserted. “And being so provocative and potentially aggressive is dangerous and it’s naive, frankly.”
