Timeline: 2014: Trump says Obama will invade Iran because he’s not a good enough negotiator to get a deal with them
2015: Obama, with the backing of the EU, China, Russia and others, gets a deal with them
2018: Trump cancels deal bc it was Obama’s and says he can negotiate a better one.
2018-2020: Trump can’t negotiate one. Arms control experts and Trump officials start to grumble that scrapping Obama’s deal was probably a bad idea.
2025: Trump still can’t negotiate a new deal
2025: Israel launches an attack on Iran. Drags Trump in. Trump claims Iran’s nuclear capacity was wiped out
2025-2026: Trump still can’t negotiate a deal
2026: Trump launches a regime change war on Iran, at Israel’s goading
The mistake McFaul makes in this analysis is in assuming that democracy is the goal. Clearly neither the United States or Israeli governments particularly want democracy. Just look at what we’ve done in Venezuela. They obviously only cared about getting an acquiescent puppet in place and believe they have one there in Darcy Rodriguez. There has been no talk of elections and a total side-lining of the people who actually won the last one. Democracy is far too messy for these people — including here at home.
They want business partners, period. They don’t care about anything else.