Walking out of Iran Deal? Not Yet Last Sunday, October 15, President Trump's National Security team members were on board and on the Sunday morning TV shows defending, justifying and explaining in their own words the new strategy towards Iran and its nuclear deal. “It's a weak deal that is being weakly monitored,” national security adviser H R McMaster said on Fox News Sunday. He also noted: “The president has made clear that he will not permit this deal to provide cover for what we know is a horrible regime to develop a nuclear weapon.” McMaster went on to say: “Our European allies already support much more rigorous reinforcement of [the deal] and more monitoring.” “One of the real problems with this deal is we can't really say with confidence that they're complying,” Trump's national security adviser said, adding “this is not a trustworthy regime.” McMaster insisted in his responses that “the president's not walking away from the deal yet” but that he wants to see “some real change.” During an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said: “The whole reason we're looking at this Iran agreement is because of North Korea,” adding “what we're saying now with Iran is don't let it become the next North Korea.” Ambassador Haley was described in a recent Politico piece as “Trump's Iran whisperer” – indicating that Haley's role was “channelling what many Democrats and even some Republicans consider the president's destructive instincts into policy.” As Politico wrote: “Haley wasn't alone. The fingerprints of former UN ambassador John Bolton, whose access to Trump was recently limited by chief of staff John Kelly, were also on Trump's Friday [October 13] address.” “If we don't see improvement, there is no sense in staying in, and he [Trump] has every intention of walking out,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on CBS's Face The Nation, noting that the action Friday “puts the onus on Congress to decide what to do next”. Senator Lindsey O Graham (R-S C) said in this same show that Trump is taking the right approach towards Iran. “The president ran on the idea that this was a bad deal for America, and he won,” Graham said. Last Saturday, for the second time in a week, President Trump and Senator Graham played golf together. A new policy was announced, but it is not yet clear what steps will be taken in the coming days and weeks to implement this policy.
Back to the future? Henry Kissinger was back in the Oval Office, sitting next to President Trump. The 94-year-old former secretary of state and a national security adviser under presidents Nixon and Ford met Trump on Tuesday, October 10. It was the second time the two have publicly convened since the inauguration. The first time was May 10 – and on that same day, President Trump was meeting with Russia's foreign minister at the White House. As it was reported, journalists were expecting to find Minister Sergey Lavrov at the president's side, but instead they were invited to an unannounced meeting with Kissinger. This time the president told reporters that Kissinger is a “man of immense talent, experience and knowledge”. Kissinger said, “Mr President, I didn't expect this opportunity. It's always a great honour to be in this office, and I'm here at a moment when the opportunity to build a constructive, peaceful world order is very great. And the president is leaving on a trip to Asia, which I think will make a big contribution to progress and peace and prosperity. Thank you for inviting me.” Last week another well-known international figure was back on the scene. The Washington Post published an op-ed piece written by Mikhail Gorbachev entitled, “My plea to the presidents of Russia and United States,” in which Gorbachev wrote: “Relations between the two nations are in a severe crisis. A way out must be sought, and there is one well-tested means available for accomplishing this: a dialogue based on mutual respect. It will not be easy to cut through the logjam of issues on both sides. But neither was our dialogue easy three decades ago.” He added, “it was the political will of the two nations' leaders that proved decisive. And that is what's needed now. This is what our two countries' citizens and people everywhere expect from the presidents of Russia and the United States.” Gorbachev wrote in his plea: “I call upon Russia and the United States to prepare and hold a full-scale summit on the entire range of issues... I believe that the summit meeting should focus on the problems of reducing nuclear weapons and strengthening strategic stability.”
