US smells blood in Iran says foreign policy expert

Trump’s policy makers think “there’s never been a better time” to attack Iran, a leading expert on US foreign policy has warned.

As the new administration’s international posture begins to assume form, many believe they smell blood in Tehran.

Aaron Stein, president of the foreign policy research institute, said: “There will be people making the argument that there’s never been a better time to go bomb Iran because Iran is weak, and they’ve shown us that they’re weak.”

It comes after Trump ordered strikes against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen this week, reportedly killing 53 people, including five children.

While Washington has restricted attacks to Iran’s proxy thus far, Stein warns Tehran has little to deter the White House from strikes inside its own borders.

He said: “One thing he [Trump] doesn’t like doing is risking escalation, he’ll take one-off actions like the drone strike on Soleimani or something like that.

“After the Israeli decimation of Hezbollah’s leadership, and after Israeli strikes inside Iran itself, there is now a model that somebody could follow, that could say “we can go strike Iran without them doing anything. So the risk of escalation is quite low.””

Trump’s signature “maximum pressure” strategy which involves sanctions and military pressure began in 2018 when he tore up the Iran nuclear deal.

The agreement had meant restraints were placed on Iran’s ability to produce uranium, the key element in nuclear weaponry.

Stein says with Iran’s unrestricted nuclear development it now has enough enriched uranium to begin making weapons with it “within the next couple of days”.

Last week Tehran rejected Trump’s proposal to renegotiate the deal, dismissing it as “deception of public opinion”.

Stein said: “His [Trumps] dangling of a return to an agreement, his sort of being more bellicose, was exactly sort of what he was doing the first time around.

“If you are the Iranians, this is the guy who ripped up the agreement, why in the world would I go back and talk to him?”

Some would say the start of the answer came this week with the US’s strikes in Yemen.

Stein believes many in Washington think the Biden administration was too weak and that the new one should take a harder line.

Echoing policy makers, he said: “The United States lost its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because we weren’t tough enough, right?

“And so the military lawyers that Hegseth just fired, they were putting — it’s the same thing we told ourselves after Vietnam — constraints on the execution of US power, and so we just need to get tougher.”

Trump’s first term was abundant with fierce rhetoric when it came to Iran, but apart from the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020, the administration did very little.

Tehran likely called the US’s bluff, with an attack on the Saudi capital Riyadh from the Houthis in 2017 bearing “all the hallmarks of previous attacks using Iranian-provided weapons,” according to the US ambassador to the UN at the time, Nikki Haley.

Stein said: “The Iranians were shooting at Riyadh with ballistic missiles, basically once a week and the United States did nothing. Literally nothing.

“It provided intelligence, targeting packages, and refuelling for the Saudi war in Yemen. It did nothing.”

The recent killing of many Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, including Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, marks a turning point for many.

According to Stein, the view in Washington now is that Israel has convincingly won both its wars against Hezbollah and Hamas, leaving Iran weak and exposed.

He said: “That Iran is in a bad position because they’re losing the war against Israel. Hezbollah has been decimated, Hamas has been decimated and Gaza has been destroyed.

“So Iran has not been this weak in a very long time. If you want to coerce policy changes, either through [Iran’s] support of the Houthis or on the nuclear file, it’s a good time to get tough.”