TEHRAN TIMES -- Mahmood Monshipouri, Ph.D., teaches Middle Eastern politics at San Francisco State University and University of California, Berkeley. He is the editor, most recently, of “Inside the Islamic Republic: Social Change in the Post-Khomeini Iran” (Oxford University Press, 2016). He wrote this opinion piece on President Trump’s anti-Iranian rhetoric.
“If the Trump administration plans to isolate Tehran and provoke a military confrontation with Iran by encouraging the Saudis to shoot the first bullet, President Trump will be disappointed, to say the least,” Monshipouri writes. “This strategy will prove to be foolish beyond compare, in large part because American’s European allies — as well as Russia and China — have decided to abide by the nuclear deal, and ironically, outside their rhetorical flourishes, so has the Trump administration. The rest of the world has accepted the legitimacy of the nuclear deal and Iran has indicated that it will fulfill its obligations in accordance with the nuclear deal.”
Photo: Shealah Craighead. Courtesy of the White House.