Trump’s habit of shaking up the status quo works in unexpected ways

Donald Trump has made the boldest foreign policy decision of his presidency by choosing to tackle Iran’s nuclear ambitions through aggression rather than negotiation.

Will it work? No, say America’s European allies. But Trump’s unorthodox foreign policy has a habit of shaking up the status quo in unexpected ways.

No one imagined a year ago that Trump would be packing his bags for a summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong-un either.

His decision to withdraw the US from the Iran nuclear deal sends the simple message that Iran cannot be trusted to abide by international norms and must be treated as a pariah.

In doing this Trump is taking a gamble that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are best stopped by challenging the despotic mullahs who run the country rather than making deals with them.

Trump will be accused of stoking the potential for military conflict and further destabilising the region by withdrawing from the deal and slapping sanctions back on Tehran. This, critics argue, will only hasten the desire of the mullahs to build the bomb.

Perhaps so, but the alternative also did not offer much comfort to the US.

The nuclear deal with Iran, well intentioned as it was, was weak. It was riddled with sunset clauses which would have eventually allowed Iran to develop its nuclear capabilities with impunity. In the meantime the inspection regime was more limited than it should have been. What’s more, the lifting of sanctions gave the mullahs a financial reward at a time when they continue to sponsor terrorism across the region and spread their malign influence into Iraq and Syria.

The 2015 agreement did nothing to slow Tehran’s development of a ballistic missile program that could deliver a nuclear weapon and other deadly warheads across the region and more.

Few experts doubt Iran wants a nuclear weapon capability at some point — it was caught secretly building uranium enrichment plants in 2002 and 2009.

At best, the nuclear deal may have slowed Iran’s progression towards a nuclear bomb, but it never changed the calculus that Tehran would eventually get one.

Trump is throwing that model away. He hopes US economic sanctions and political aggression will encourage a popular uprising by Iran’s youth.

Trump’s decision sets the scene for a new era of American confrontation with Iran.

It is a big gamble but the grim alternative was that under the nuclear deal Iran would continue its march — slowly but inevitably — towards becoming a nuclear weapons state.

Trump’s challenge to the mullahs may make that outcome less certain.