Trump turns Iran into North Korea

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Conservative columnist Nicholas Kristoff lays it out (gift link)

nytimes.com - Trump iran war power
Now, once again, we’ve botched our way into an Iran cul-de-sac, and in the process we appear to have inadvertently strengthened the most dangerous and extreme forces in that country. President Trump is right that we have significantly degraded Iran’s air force, navy and missile systems — but conversely Iran has gained leverage by controlling passage through the Strait of Hormuz. So one bizarre result of the war is that Iran is now earning almost twice as much per day in oil revenue as it was before the war, partly because of higher oil prices, according to The Economist. It’s healthy that President Trump is talking about wrapping up his war in Iran: “We will be leaving very soon,” Trump said. The problem is that while President Trump could start the war, he can’t end it on his own; Iran has a vote on that. …. If Trump leaves Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz, charging hefty tolls and barring the passage of ships linked to the United States or its military partners, he will have significantly set back the global economy, weakened the United States and strengthened Iran. And American ships will remain stuck, unable to leave. Iran could earn $500 billion over about four years just in tolls charged to passing ships, Reuters estimated. If that sum were allocated for weaponry, Iran would have one of the five biggest military budgets in the world.
After laying out the numerous missteps, he concludes:

Definitely we got a change in the regime, like Trump said, but a very, very bad change in the regime,” Citrinowicz said. He described the killing of Khamenei as “a major mistake,” saying that if the supreme leader had died naturally, his hard-line son, Mojtaba, would have had little chance of succeeding him. Instead, the successor might have been someone like Hassan Khomeini or Hassan Rouhani, both perceived as somewhat more open to change. As Vali Nasr, an Iran expert at Johns Hopkins University, told me: “We essentially removed all the people who were still a restraint on the system and replaced them with the most hawkish people.” The new leadership is weighted toward the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, so we may see Iran evolving in an even more militaristic direction. That’s my fear: We’ve put Iran on a path to become another North Korea.

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