Trump and the Ayatollah: Who Will Flinch First?

There is less than 60 days until Donald Trump becomes the 45th President of the United States of America and the Ayatollah has already threatened the United States with retaliation due to the House of Representatives renewing the Iran Sanctions Act for 10 years.  Given the fact that this act was not actually part of the final agreement between the Obama Administration and Iran, it is hard to understand why the Ayatollah is so bent out of shape.

To understand why Iran is already making threatening gestures one must look into how far-reaching the shift will be in America’s foreign policy after Jan. 20th.  Let’s assume for a second that the worst happens and Mitt Romney is selected as Secretary of State.  Even Romney is fully opposed to the Iran deal and believes America should take down the Ayatollahs.  It’s true that Romney is equally antagonistic towards Russia, but isolating the Iran policy by itself and considering this is the best they can hope for, the Persian predicament is still pretty bad.  Now let’s assume Trump goes with a Bolton or Rudy Gulliani, then Iran will be looking down the barrel of a gun.

Given Donald Trump’s view of the world, where Russia becomes a force to be dealt with directly then the bad actor is none other than Iran, exactly the way it is now. For the Donald everyone else is rightfully just trying to do the best for their country (save for Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and a few others) and so in a simple, but realistic way those countries that cannot abide by any deal are bad actors meant to be isolated.

Iran is ratcheting up the pressure now in order to make it clear to the new President that it must be taken seriously and all agreements be adhered to. With General Flynn acting as Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser, Nikki Haley now the Ambassador to be at the UN, and a Secretary of State that would love to see a hard-line drawn on the Mullah’s, Iran has little chance to convince Donald Trump to back down.

The only question is, what will Iran do when there is no deal to hold them to?

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