Net Assessment: Deciphering the Trump Administration’s Iran Policy

Melanie, Bryan, and Chris discuss the Trump administration’s recent struggles to explain its policy toward Iran. What does President Donald Trump hope to achieve? What evidence is there that the policy of “maximum pressure” will succeed? Does the administration have the authority to launch military attacks against Iran, either under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) or under Article II of the Constitution? Or must they go to Congress for a new AUMF? And to what extent do various personnel decisions explain the frequent misalignment between Trump’s stated objectives and the actual results? This episode also includes praise for a belated effort to reclaim Congress’s war powers, while Harvard earns scorn for its counterproductive ploy to advance gender equality. There’s criticism, too, for short-sighted opponents of another round of military base closures.

Links

• “Oversight of the Trump Administration’s Iran Policy,” U.S. House of Representative Committee on Foreign Affairs, June 19, 2019
• Bret Stephens, “The Pirates of Tehran: If Iran Won’t Change Its Behavior, We Should Sink Its Navy,” New York Times, June 14, 2019
• Andrew J. Bacevich, “Bret Stephens, Warmonger,” The American Conservative, June 18, 2019
• Michael Bender and Gordon Lubold, “Trump Bucked National-Security Aides on Proposed Iran Attack,” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2019
• “Dubious Legal Authority in the Push for War with Iran,” Cato Daily Podcast, June 20, 2019
• “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” New York Times, September 5, 2018
• Tom Vanden Brook and Kevin Johnson, “Shanahan Did Not Disclose Domestic Fight Before His 2017 Confirmation As Deputy Defense Secretary,” USA Today, June 22, 2019
• Jonathan Swam, Juliet Bartz, Alayna Treene, Orion Rummler, “Exclusive: Leaked Trump Vetting Docs,” Axios, June 23, 2019
• Nahal Toosi, “Trump Envoy Not Ruling Out Using Afghan War Law to Justify Iranian Strikes,” Politico, June 19, 2019
• “House Votes to Repeal Authorization for the Use of Military Force,” Week, June 19, 2019
• Joe Gould, “US Senate Votes to Kill Saudi Arms Sales, Defying Trump Veto Threat,” Defense News, June 20, 2019
• Harry Lewis, “Harvard’s Infantilizing Private Club Policy is Part of a Bigger Agenda,” Washington Post, June 24, 2019
• “Treasury Targets Key Al-Qa’ida Funding and Support Network Using Iran as a Critical Transit Point,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, July 28, 2011
• Jeff Schogol, “The Pentagon Says Iran Killed More US Troops in Iraq than Previously Known,” Task and Purpose, April 4, 2019
• George Will, The Conservative Sensibility, (Hachette Books, 2019)
• Peter Wehner, The Death of Politics: How to Heal Our Frayed Republic After Trump, (HarperOne, 2019)
• Kingston Reif, Tweets, June 22, 2019
• Chase Madar, Tweets, June 22, 2019
• Sustainable Defense Task Force, Center for International Policy
• The John Hay Initiative
• Center for International Policy’s Sustainable Defense Task Force
• The Navy Yard in Philadelphia
• “The Tunnel,” PBS
• “Black Mirror,” Netflix
• Quillette