Talks between the United States and Iran, which President Trump said on Monday would begin on Saturday in Oman, face considerable problems of substance and well-earned mistrust.
While Mr. Trump has recently threatened Iran with “bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” he has also made it clear that he prefers a diplomatic deal. That reassurance — made in the Oval Office sitting next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who has pressed for military action — will be welcomed widely in the Arab world.
Even if the target is the Islamic Republic of Iran, with all of its ambitions for regional hegemony, Arab countries from Egypt through the Gulf fear the economic and social consequences of an American and Israeli war, especially as the killing in Gaza continues.
A bombing campaign would most likely prompt serious Iranian counterattacks on American and Israeli targets and Gulf infrastructure, like Saudi oil facilities, which no Arab nation in the region wants to see. It could also prompt Iran to weaponize its nuclear program and build a bomb.
Already, the United States has moved more long-range stealthy B-2 bombers into range and dispatched a second aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson, into the region, while initiating a major bombing campaign against the Houthis, Iran’s allies, which is seen as a message from Washington.
Mr. Netanyahu said on Monday in the Oval Office that he sought a deal “the way it was done in Libya,” referring to 2003, when Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, then the leader, agreed to eliminate all of his country’s weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear-weapons program. If Mr. Trump “seeks to dismantle the Iranian nuclear program Libya-style, in addition to closing down Iran’s missile program and Tehran’s relations with its regional partners, then diplomacy will most likely be dead on arrival,” argued Trita Parsi, an Iran expert at the Quincy Institute.
Iran should have nukes to.protect against American aggression.