Trump's policy against Iran ‘costly’ failure: Ex-US diplomat

A former US under secretary of state for political affairs, who was the chief negotiator in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, has criticized President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran as an instance of his “painful” and “costly” foreign policy failures.

In an article titled “The Total Destruction of US Foreign Policy Under Trump,” Wendy Sherman enumerated the failures of the Trump administration in the face of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

“Trump’s approach to Iran is another painful and costly example. Over three years after the Trump administration withdrew from the nuclear deal, Iran has more highly enriched uranium …, more operating nuclear facilities, more sophisticated technology,” she wrote in her article published by The Foreign Policy magazine on Friday.

“US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Iran envoy Brian Hook advertise this as a campaign of 'maximum pressure,' but their ultimate objective—which they insist is not regime change—remains a mystery,” she added.

The US unleashed the so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran in 2018, when it unilaterally scrapped the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Following its withdrawal, Washington targeted the Iranian nation with the “toughest ever” economic sanctions.

It is currently dialing up efforts to kill the JCPOA completely through pushing the remaining parties to the multilateral agreement to extend a UN arms embargo on Tehran.

Elsewhere in her article, Sherman, a professor at Harvard University, said Trump lacks any “discernible objective” in its foreign policy and is only focused on obtaining foreign help for his re-election.

“As a result of Trump’s failures, the Middle East is further from peace and closer to the next Palestinian uprising than when he took office, the people of Cuba and Venezuela face a bitter future, the promise of African renewal is sidelined, and there is no real challenge to either Russia or China,” she wrote.

“The only possible conclusion is that the objective in Trump’s relations with other countries is not national security but Trump’s security. Nothing else explains the vacuous and vain approach of a foreign policy without objectives, without strategy, without any indication that it protects and advances US interests.”