According to former CIA director William J. Burns, the war with Iran has been plagued by President Donald Trump’s “unforced errors.” But having spent a lifetime in diplomacy — which included leading negotiations with Iran in the run-up to the nuclear deal that was later canceled by Trump — Burns says there are still three critical things the commander-in-chief can do to extract the U.S. from the "mess" in Iran.
“President Trump’s war of choice with Iran has paid little attention to our past mistakes and added many of his own,” writes Burns. “He assumed that bombs and assassinations could bring about regime change. He misread tactical military success as a workable strategy. He made policy choices based on Presidential Id and court politics. He negotiated on the fly with little forethought or planning.”
With this in mind, Burns says Trump should move forward with three things in mind.
First, navigating the situation is going to require “time and patience.” While the administration thought that decapitating the leadership would be a shortcut, or that the Iranians would immediately accept the “perfect” deal to end hostilities, Trump has run up against the fact that an ideological and entrenched regime is not going to give way so easily. Burns advises that the White House needs to “overcome its addiction to quick fixes” and “play a longer game, curbing the worst risk posed by Tehran — the potential for nuclear weaponization — and blunting other threats over time, while supporting political freedoms for the Iranian people.”
Second, he says Trump must harness “all the instruments of U.S. national security.” That means military and economic leverage, but it also means “patient, painstaking diplomacy, backed up by good intelligence taken seriously by policymakers” and collaboration with allies.
Third, Burns asserts that the “mowing the grass approach,” in which force is used to provide short-term solutions without a long-term plan, only results in more problems. Trump’s attempt at a quick military victory in many ways strengthened Iran’s strategic position, hurt Gulf states, fractured alliances, enriched and empowered China and Russia, all while severely disrupting the global economy. The White House, therefore, must move forward with a vision for what’s ahead.
“We didn’t have to dig the hole this deep,” Burns concludes. “Fortunately, there’s still time to put our shovel down, learn some hard lessons, and apply them with a little more humility.”