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Trump discussed easing sanctions to help secure Rouhani meeting
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PRESIdENT donald Trump discussed easing sanctions on Iran to help secure a meeting with Iranian President hassan Rouhani on the side- lines of the UN General Assembly gathering in New York later this month, Bloomberg reported on September 11.
John Bolton, the ultra-hawkish national secu- rity advisor whom Trump red over wide policy di erences on September 10 (although Bolton says he resigned) reportedly argued forcefully against any such easing up of Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Teh- ran, while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin voiced his support for it. When asked by report- ers at the White house on September 11 about the possibility of the US reducing its “maximum pressure” strategy, Trump responded, “We’ll see what happens.”
It would seem that a very major concession from Trump to the Iranians would be needed to even make them consider a meeting between the presidents in the week of the UN gathering, which starts on September 23. In the past cou- ple of weeks, Iranian leaders have very publicly spurned the idea of such an encounter, saying Tehran would only consider talking to the US inamultilateralformatandthatwouldonlybe countenanced once all sanctions that undermine the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers had been withdrawn.
France’s Emmanuel Macron has been work- ing to bring the US and Iran together, but his plan to ease the path to negotiations by provid- ing Iran with oil-guaranteed credit lines worth $15bn was hardly given a hearing by Trump administration o cials. Whether such attitudes might so en now that Bolton is out of the picture remains to be seen.
“Bolton made sure to block any and all ave- nues for diplomacy w/ Iran, including a plan being brokered by Macron,” Suzanne diMaggio,
a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said on Twitter. “ e French are o ering Trump a face-saving way out a mess of his creation. he should grab it.”
Iran has described the US sanctions assault on its economy as an “economic war” with ele- ments of “economic terrorism”. Its battle to keep up a respectable level of oil exports in the face of sanctions deployed by Washington in an e ort at driving all such Iranian consignments off world markets has turned into an intense battle on the grey market, with Iranian tankers turn- ing o their location beacons and indulging in shadowy ship to ship transfers of crude. e US plan is to wreck the Iranian economy to the point that the Iranians agree a new nuclear deal that will impose tougher conditions on their nuclear development programme, strict limits on their ballistic missile programme and rule out support for militias in the Middle East that are variously the enemies of Israel and Arab nation allies of the Americans.
Responding to the news of Bolton leaving the Trump administration, Rouhani urged the US “to put warmongers aside”. On his website he added that the Americans should “abandon war- mongeringandthemaximumpressurepolicy”.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, meanwhile slammed the US for ordering new sanctions on his country despite the depar- ture of “warmonger-in-chief ” Bolton.
“As the world ... was breathing a sigh of relief over ouster of #B_Team’s henchman in the White house, [Washington] declared fur- ther escalation of #EconomicTerrorism [sanc- tions] against Iran,” Zarif tweeted. “ irst for war—maximum pressure—should go with the warmonger-in-chief.”
Zarif has o en said that a so-called “B-team” including Bolton could goad Trump into a mili- tary con ict with Tehran.™
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