雷·马里亚诺：期待特朗普在伊朗核协议上取得成功

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Ray Mariano: Rooting for Trump to succeed on Iran nuclear deal

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I’m rooting for Trump to succeed because he’s the president and what he does next will have an enormous impact on our country and the world.

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I’m rooting for Trump to succeed in his efforts to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran. Look, I’m not a hypocrite. I think that Trump is the worst president in U.S. history. In fact, if there was a ranking lower than worst, in my opinion, Trump would have earned it. He is easily the most corrupt, lawless, vindictive, narcissistic person to ever hold the position. Despite all of that, I don’t root for Trump to fail. OK, that’s not true, I want to see him fail when he tries to build one of those monuments to himself that he says won’t cost taxpayers anything but ends up costing us hundreds of millions of dollars. I was delighted when Trump’s stooges were forced to tear his name off of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. And, I confess, I even got a chuckle after Trump had the bottom of the reflecting pool painted blue and algae showed up, turning it a slimy green. But when it comes to negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, I’m rooting for the president to succeed. JCPOA I’m rooting for Trump to succeed even though he tore up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a landmark agreement between Iran and the U.S., England, France, China, Russia and Germany. That agreement strictly limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and allowed for international inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Like a petulant child, Trump ripped up the JCPOA not because it was hopelessly flawed but because it was negotiated by the Obama administration. Trump’s envy of anything connected to Barack Obama is obvious. Even though he never had an alternative plan for health care and still doesn’t, Trump was willing to force tens of millions of Americans to go without health care just to stick it to Obama. The only reason was because the Affordable Care Act is often referred to as Obamacare. But I don’t want to argue the value of the JCPOA. For the purposes of this column, let’s just say that the JCPOA needed to be strengthened. In 2018, before Trump tore up the agreement, Iran had only 3.67% enriched uranium and was unable to go higher until 2030. Tearing up the agreement allowed Iran to accelerate their nuclear activity. Today, Iran has 60%. Had Trump simply left the agreement in place and then tried to negotiate a successor agreement, there would never have been a need to start a war. Trump’s petulance forced the administration to dig itself out of a hole that they dug for themselves. Memorandum of Understanding Even though the recent Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Iran is seriously flawed and provides significant upfront concessions to Iran, I’m rooting for Trump to succeed as he continues his negotiations. Trump says the Strait of Hormuz will immediately be open and continue that way. Iran says that after 60 days they have every intention of charging tolls to ships that want to pass through the strait. So far, only one of three channels in the strait is open. Trump criticized the Obama administration when it gave Iran its money back for an arms agreement that they had already paid for and never received. But Trump says it was a mistake to give Iran money, even if it was their own. However, in the current memorandum, Trump has promised to help provide $300 billion in reconstruction costs, give Iran $24 billion of their long-frozen assets back, plus remove sanctions that will provide Iran with hundreds of billions in cash. Taken collectively, Trump will be providing Iran significantly more money than Obama. Trump said that he wanted regime change. Unfortunately, what he got is worse. He said he wanted unconditional surrender and to obliterate their ballistic missiles. He got neither. Beyond all of that, Iran does not commit to destroying its current stockpile of nuclear material. The language in the memorandum is so troubling that a number of normally subservient Republican senators have been highly critical of the agreement. Costs of the war Despite the fact that we should never have been in this place, I’m rooting for Trump to succeed. Forget that Trump said the American military “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program and then a short time later said that Iran was on the verge of creating a nuclear weapon. Put aside the fact that his war cost the U.S. $29 billion in direct military spending and could cost Americans up to $1 trillion when accounting for macroeconomic impacts like inflated fuel and food prices. It’s not easy to do, but for this conversation, let’s not discuss the loss of American lives and the slaughter of innocent children that resulted from Trump’s war. Despite all of that and more, I’m rooting for Trump to succeed because, whether I like it or not, he’s the president and what he does next will have an enormous impact on our country and the world. We shouldn’t be here. But we are. Rooting for Trump is not like rooting for the Celtics or the Patriots where losing is soothed by the fact that there’s always next year. Here the outcome could have staggering consequences – more bombing, more death, a ruptured world economy. I’m rooting for Trump against any rational expectation of success knowing that mixing his childish temperament and ego with the inexperience of those around him could be disastrous for our world. From where I sit, it’s a long shot. I don’t hold out much hope that we will reach an agreement that will be as good as the JCPOA. And I won’t forget that we should have never been here in the first place. Nevertheless, I’m sincerely rooting for Trump to negotiate a reasonable deal, one that generations from now will be heralded for the positive things that it did. I’m rooting for Trump to succeed and anyone who isn’t has lost their perspective. The consequences of failure are just too great. There are some issues that rise above partisan politics, and this is one of them.