President Donald Trump took to the stage as the Chair of the United Nations Security Council this week to urge the members of the Security Council to isolate Iran out of the international system. This comes after Donald Trump voiced his concern over Iran’s nuclear deals that ‘sow chaos, death and destruction’ from a country who ‘do not respect the sovereignty of nations’.
Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, has taken the morale high ground in comparison, calling out America as a ‘bully’ trying to force Iran into negotiations as part of their authoritarian sense of power in international relations, that is not legal or legitimised. Rouhani refuses to be forced to come to the negotiating table by America, however, remains in talks and attended the UN summit this week as a show of both cooperation and political leadership, believing there is ‘no better way than dialogue’.
Iran has not only reacted to President Trump’s request to UN but to numerous attempts at Iran nuclear programme which remains a substantial part of Iran’s economy, especially in a time where Iran’s economy is failing, if not already collapsed due to the macroeconomic problems which have plagued Iran.
Social outbursts at President Rouhani by the Iranian public have caused negotiations to be put on hold, with many protesters flying banners ‘No Sanctions. No War.’ Threatening social unrest from men who ‘see suffering every day’ in Iran. The nuclear deal is already impacting an unstable country and likely to make any deal even harder to negotiate in a turbulent international system.
Trump can be seen to raise tensions in the UN through his attack on Iran and another misplaced tweet. Before the UNSC meeting, Trump tweeted President Rouhani is most likely a ‘lovely man’ only to criticise Iranian internal politics as ‘mayhem’. A cut to Rouhani but another show of how destabilising Donald Trump can be on an international level, does this make Donald Trump the most dangerous man on Earth, due to his unpredictability?
Armed with Bolton as his National Security Director, Trump is sure to cause ‘mayhem’ in the coming negotiations as Bolton ‘there will be hell to pay’ for anyone who crosses America, its citizens or its allies.
What does Trump want out of the Nuclear deal? For some scholars, Trump is simply looking to simply say ‘I did a better job. I got a better deal.’ as a transactional president, but what does this entail? American hegemony? Nuclear nonproliferation? How likely is this going to happen when Iran has yet to break any terms of the previous agreement and is compliment with international law?
One thing is certain, Iran has far more accountability than Donald Trump within the International System, and Trump knows it.
