핵심요약

• 트럼프 행정부는 이란의 핵 프로그램에 대한 결정(지난해 폭격)을 재검토하며 이전의 이스라엘 관련 결정에서 거리를 두는 방향으로 선회했습니다.
• 2020년에 쿠드스 포스 살레만이를 처단하는 결정은 이란의 능력을 실질적으로 감소시켰으나, 당장 광범위한 전쟁을 유발하지는 않았습니다.
• 아브라함 협정(Abraham Accords)은 이스라엘과 걸프 지역 간의 군사 협력을 개선하여 방어 능력을 향상시키는 데 기여했습니다.
• 행정부는 2018년에 오바마의 핵 합의에서 완전히 철회하는 등 일부 결정에서 실수를 저질렀습니다.

도입

본 기사는 미국 행정부의 이란 정책이 내포한 전략적 모순과 위험 요소를 분석하며, 투자자들이 지정학적 리스크와 정책 불확실성을 어떻게 평가해야 하는지에 대한 시사점을 제공합니다. 이는 단순한 사건 나열을 넘어, 외교적 목표와 군사적 실행 간의 괴리가 장기적인 국제 관계와 에너지 시장에 미치는 영향을 이해하는 데 중요합니다.

본문 1: 전략적 위험과 계산된 리스크

트럼프 행정부는 이란의 핵 프로그램에 대한 접근 방식을 변경하며 위험을 감수했습니다. 특히, 2019년에는 미국 드론 격추에 대한 보복으로 이란을 직접 공격하라는 국방부의 권고를 거부했는데, 이는 비례적이지 않고 잠재적으로 위험한 대응일 수 있다는 판단에 따른 것입니다. 이러한 결정은 즉각적인 군사적 충돌을 피하는 데 기여했습니다. 반면, 2020년 쿠드스 포스 살레만이를 처단한 행위는 이란의 역량을 감소시키는 결과를 낳았으나, 당시 많은 사람들이 우려했던 광범위한 전쟁을 즉각적으로 유발하지는 않았습니다. 이는 위험을 계산하고 관리하는 과정이 정책 결정에 얼마나 중요한지를 보여줍니다. 즉, 단기적인 충돌 회피와 장기적인 전략적 목표 달성 사이에서 리스크를 관리하는 것이 핵심이었습니다.

본문 2: 외교적 일관성과 정책의 불확실성

행정부의 결정 과정에서 일관성 부족이 발견됩니다. 2018년에는 오바마 대통령의 핵 합의에서 완전히 철회함으로써 잠재적인 제재의 역효과를 활용할 기회를 놓쳤습니다. 이는 합의의 장기적인 이점을 활용하지 못하고 단기적인 입장을 취한 것으로 해석됩니다. 또한, 이란의 대리 세력에 대한 대응에서 일관성이 부족했습니다. 2019년에 이란의 대리 세력 공격에 대해 적절히 대응하지 못한 것은 외교적 압박과 전략적 목표 달성이라는 두 가지 측면에서 정책의 취약점을 드러냅니다. 이러한 일관성 부족은 국제 사회에서 미국의 정책 신뢰도에 영향을 미치며, 이는 중동 지역의 지정학적 변동성을 높이는 요인으로 작용합니다.

본문 3: 장기적 전망과 지정학적 영향

이란 핵 프로그램에 대한 미국의 접근 방식은 단기적인 군사적 행동을 넘어 장기적인 지정학적 안정성에 영향을 미칩니다. 핵 프로그램의 재점화 가능성은 중동 지역의 에너지 안보와 지역 강대국 간의 경쟁 구도를 심화시킬 수 있습니다. 아브라함 협정에서 입증된 이스라엘과 걸프 국가 간의 협력은 특정 지역의 안보 프레임을 재정립하고 있습니다. 따라서 향후 미국의 이란 정책은 단순히 군사적 승패를 넘어, 지역 내 세력 균형과 국제 규범의 수용 여부에 따라 그 영향력이 결정될 것입니다. 투자자들은 이러한 정책의 변동성이 에너지 가격과 국제 무역 흐름에 미치는 영향을 면밀히 관찰해야 합니다.

결론

결론적으로, 이란에 대한 미국의 정책은 계산된 위험 감수와 외교적 일관성 사이의 복잡한 균형을 요구하는 과정이었습니다. 향후 이란 정책의 성공 여부는 단기적인 군사적 결과뿐만 아니라, 장기적인 지정학적 목표를 달성하기 위한 외교적 프레임워크를 얼마나 효과적으로 구축하느냐에 달려 있습니다. 투자자들은 이러한 정책의 변동성을 인지하고, 지역 내 세력 균형 변화에 따른 에너지 및 지정학적 리스크를 지속적으로 평가해야 할 것입니다.

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원문 링크: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMi3AFBVV95cUxQUUNLOXVxQWpUM1RHa0FUWnBadE9BTWxwTjJYSC1HRms4Y2l3anR3NnlKQXNOU1Jnai04UmZLeHhwWUo1dURYVTcyMnAwcWc5cENSdk1UWV90SkEtc25yc29NamR1Y1NESnloT21lZnplYTNxZW5kX2h1d28tQ3lTWTZGMlR5NG5fYU5jbWtObThlY3F4QmJ6RThjN2VhQ1doeGJFZmpjMkw4S3JheXVweTVzVzlCZzJBbjVTQVlFTm1rRHEzY0JzUHNGRVk3VHNHYUNtbTFvRER3dDN2?oc=5

A misguided war, a flawed deal, and a dangerous future. Here’s what to do next on Iran. - Atlantic Council

Since first taking office, US President Donald Trump has been right on Iran more often than his critics care to admit.

From the outset, he recognized the threat posed by the regime and its nuclear program, necessarily expanded US sanctions to disrupt Iran’s malign activities, and sought a stronger nuclear deal than the imperfect one negotiated by his predecessor. The Abraham Accords that Trump announced near the end of his first term allowed for significantly improved military coordination between Israel and the Gulf, including critical efforts to improve defenses that proved invaluable when Iran twice attacked Israel directly during the Biden administration.

Trump also has made a number of correct calls on the most difficult questions involving the use of US military force against Iran, often overruling his advisors. Sometimes he has properly been more cautious; other times he has appropriately been willing to take calculated risks. In 2019, for instance, he wisely rejected a Pentagon recommendation to strike Iran directly in response to the shootdown of a US drone, which would have been a disproportionate and thus potentially dangerous response. Then, in 2020, he shocked the Pentagon by ordering the killing of Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani, which materially diminished Iranian capabilities and did not immediately provoke the wider war that many had feared at the time. That risk was mitigated when Trump refused calls to escalate further after Iran retaliated against US forces. Most significantly, Trump made the right decision last year to bomb Iran’s nuclear program, reversing his administration’s prior decision to distance itself from Israel’s earlier strikes.

Trump hasn’t gotten everything right on Iran, of course. In 2018, he unwisely withdrew altogether from former US President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement instead of leveraging its strengths, such as its provisions to “ snap back ” sanctions. In 2019, he failed to respond when Iranian proxies attacked Saudi energy facilities Since his first term he has repeatedly questioned whether the United States should protect the flow of energy from the Gulf, arguing that “we don’t need oil” and therefore “don’t have to be patrolling the straits.” And he even began his second term by eliminating security details for those who served him previously and were targets of Iranian assassination plots .

Still, as this year began, it was reasonable to believe that Trump was well-positioned to develop a new set of policies toward Iran to advance US interests. Indeed, circumstances might have never been more advantageous for a shrewd combination of US power and diplomacy. Tehran’s geostrategic position had been sharply diminished in the wake of Israeli military successes against Iranian partners Hamas and Hezbollah, the fall of Iran’s ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Israel’s destruction of Iranian strategic air defenses, and the damage done in 2025 to Iran’s nuclear facilities. Perhaps most importantly, there were signs that the Iranian people were poised to once again rise up against their oppressors. It was a moment to leverage US strengths in coordination with regional partners to diminish the Iranian regime’s ability to threaten both the Middle East and its own citizens.

Unfortunately, Trump did not learn from his own experiences with Iran and take advantage of this generational opportunity. Instead, he repeated many of his predecessors’ mistakes by launching a misguided war and compounding the error by agreeing to a deeply flawed ceasefire agreement.

Nevertheless, there remains a way to salvage the situation. To avoid dangerous, predictable outcomes in the months and years ahead, Trump should embrace a new negotiating approach, a new emphasis on regional security and deterrence, and a new commitment to preparing for the future—all of which could attract bipartisan support in Congress.

Novel miscalculations in the conduct of foreign policy are understandable; repeated errors are not. US policies toward Iran this year have included a series of decisions that failed to apply lessons that should have been learned from previous mistakes by Trump’s predecessors.

Like Obama—who publicly declared a US red line regarding chemical-weapons use in Syria , erroneously imagining that the threat alone would compel compliance—Trump on January 2 demanded that the Iranian government not attack its peaceful protesters, threatening that “we are locked and loaded and ready to go.” Then, like George H.W. Bush and Dwight Eisenhower, who called on Iraqis and Hungarians respectively to rise up against their oppressors and then stood by when they were massacred, Trump on January 13 called on the Iranian people to “keep protesting” as “help is on its way” before they were left helpless and butchered by the regime, likely by the tens of thousands.

Like George W. Bush, who launched a misguided war of choice to achieve regime change in Iraq with rosy assumptions of low costs and unrealistic outcomes, Trump on February 28 began his war against Iran by promising to “destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground,” “ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region,” and “ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.” None of these specific objectives has yet been accomplished. Moreover, in contrast to Bush, who overthrew Saddam Hussein and installed a new system of government, Trump has not achieved his stated goal of regime change, managing instead to only decapitate its leadership. The Iranian security forces did not comply with Trump’s demand to “lay down your arms,” so the Iranian people were unable to “take over your government,” as he had urged.

Like Lyndon Johnson, who failed to anticipate enemy action before the Tet Offensive in Vietnam , Trump didn’t plan for the predictable Iranian response of targeting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. In contrast to Johnson, however, Trump and his advisors had easily available to them the results of countless war games over the decades that foresaw this Iranian reaction.

The recent memorandum of understanding with Iran also has unwelcome historical parallels. Trump has repeated Woodrow Wilson’s central mistake with Germany by signing an agreement at Versailles that increases the likelihood of another future war. And Trump’s fourteen points (the number itself providing another ironic Wilson echo ) includes provisions that provide for Iran to be paid through sanctions relief, reconstruction funds, and almost certainly some form of transit fees. In this respect, Trump has repeated Thomas Jefferson’s critical error when he went to war against the Barbary Pirates to end mandatory US tributes, but in the end agreed to “ ransom ” payments that set the stage for the Second Barbary War.

Trump’s approach to his fourteen-point agreement with Iran mirrors his previous twenty-point agreement on Gaza. There are some positive commonalities. Each usefully halted fighting, allowed for a renewed transit of critically needed goods, and began wider negotiations between warring parties. They also share challenges. From the beginning, for example, most observers didn’t believe either would proceed far beyond the first of the many points listed.

But that’s where the similarities end. The twenty-point agreement required Hamas to immediately release its hostages—the living and dead Israelis kidnapped by the group when it launched its war against Israel. But the fourteen-point agreement instead strengthens Iran’s control over its hostage, the Strait of Hormuz, which was taken only after the US launched its war. Iranian leaders certainly appreciate this fact, which explains their decision to move rapidly to enforce their control over Hormuz—an action that triggered the latest military exchanges between Iran and the United States.

Furthermore, while the twenty-point agreement came after Hamas was militarily defeated, the fourteen-point agreement leaves Iran victorious. Despite the damage done by the US and Israeli air forces, the Iranian regime remains in power and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps appears to have further consolidated its internal position both within the government and over a cowed population.

More significantly, the regime, following its longstanding approach, has successfully created a “new normal” in which Iranian actions that would have previously been considered casus belli now have been redefined below the threshold of war. Every US president since Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan determined that the United States would use military force to ensure freedom of navigation from the Gulf through international waters, but now Trump has, in effect and in writing, accepted de facto Iranian control over a vital maritime chokepoint. This is a stark contrast from when Obama directly but privately threatened Iran about any attempts to close the Strait of Hormuz—and a complete reversal even from Trump’s April 1 address to the nation in which he promised that “when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally.”

In recent decades, the United States had built so much trust with its Gulf security partners that leaders in the United Arab Emirates felt they were abandoned by Joe Biden after a comparatively modest Houthi attack in 2022, requiring the US to work hard to mend diplomatic relations . That experience is quite a distance from where we are today, when Trump openly dismisses Iranian direct hits on Emirati vital infrastructure as “ not heavy firing ” and defends the existence of Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles—a message that was undoubtedly heard loud and clear in both Tehran and Abu Dhabi. A new normal that allows Iran to supplement its ability to project power indirectly through proxies with an accepted ability to strike its neighbors directly as it desires cannot possibly be in US interests.

This new normal formalized in the memorandum also has enabled Iran to officially link its interests in two theaters—the Gulf and Lebanon—and to divide the United States and Israel diplomatically, both longstanding Iranian strategic objectives that previous American presidents had denied. Trump’s memorandum of understanding empowers Iran to pressure the US to halt Israeli military operations targeting Hezbollah. We should expect Iran’s most recent use of this leverage to not be close to its last.

There’s another core difference between Trump’s Gaza and Iran ceasefire deals. While we should hope that all twenty points in the Gaza deal are fully implemented, we should hope that all fourteen points with Iran are never implemented.

It is reasonable to be deeply skeptical about whether the twenty points and Trump’s Board of Peace will ever be successful, but Palestinians, Israelis, and the entire region would be much safer and more prosperous if they are. The plan’s aspirations include demilitarizing Hamas and blocking it from governance, preventing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, blocking Israeli occupation or annexation of Gaza, providing security with an international force, mobilizing a global effort to ensure reconstruction and economic development, prioritizing deradicalization to encourage tolerance and coexistence, and establishing a Palestinian state that poses no threat to Israel. Only the most extreme Palestinians and Israelis could possibly object to this vision.

In contrast, the vision underlying the fourteen-point Iran plan is a nightmare for vital US national security interests—something many still haven’t fully appreciated. Should the agreement’s provisions ever become realities, it would fundamentally reshape the balance of power in the region to Iran’s benefit and the United States’ detriment.

Just a few clauses buried in the fourteen points tell the whole story. On the military front, Trump has committed to a Middle East in which the US will “remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran” and “will not deploy additional forces in the region.” On the face of it, this will lead to a US military withdrawal—a policy that I have been repeatedly warning against despite its appeal to many on both sides of the political spectrum. Most importantly, this is a Middle East in which the Iranian regime is clearly allowed to domestically enrich nuclear materials. The memorandum refuses to signal otherwise, instead affirming that “the Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program.” As every US administration—both Democratic and Republican—has concluded for decades, that nuclear program is a weapons program. That’s what “maintaining the status quo” really means.

On the financial front, this is also a Middle East in which the United States unfreezes Iranian funds and explicitly agrees that they can be “fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designated by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” That would include rebuilding Iran’s threatening arsenals and expanding its financial support to Hezbollah, the Houthis, Hamas, and proxies in Iraq. In addition, the US would be committed to ensuring that Iran receives the mind-boggling sum of “at least” $300 billion, granting “all required licenses, waivers, and permissions needed for the relevant financial transactions” without any qualification for abiding by US laws in the process. That’s the same amount as Iran’s entire current gross domestic product. But it’s not enough money for the regime, so furthermore “the United States of America undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” apparently including those imposed for any purpose whatsoever, and, explicitly, “the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions.” This goes light years beyond the Obama nuclear deal, which lifted US sanctions imposed on the nuclear file but permitted sanctions related to other malign Iranian activities, such as support for global terrorism, to continue.

On the diplomatic front, this is a Middle East in which the US is publicly committed to preventing Israel from retaliating against Hezbollah’s direct attacks and terrorism. It is important to recall that Hezbollah voluntarily initiated its war with Israel in 2023 in order to support Hamas in the wake of Hamas’s terrorist attack on civilians within Israel. At the same time, the US has agreed to allow Iran to “conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz.” There won’t be “tolls,” but instead there will be security fees, administrative charges, environmental levies, supplemental insurance programs, and every other synonym one can imagine. If current trend lines hold, it’s only a matter of time before Trump flips longstanding US policy on its head completely and commits to being a party to Hormuz tolling. Indeed, one of the president’s latest statements on the subject seemed designed to lay the foundation for that final capitulation.

The fourteen points begin (point two) with a pact that the US and Iran will cease “interfering in each other’s internal affairs”—a complete American abandonment of the Iranian people that must have the victims of January’s massacres or the previous Woman, Life, Freedom movement rolling in their graves. And to wrap this all up in a bow, Trump would commit the US to include all of this in “a binding [United Nations Security Council] resolution,” thus enshrining these provisions into international law and tying the hands of his successors.

Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMi3AFBVV95cUxQUUNLOXVxQWpUM1RHa0FUWnBadE9BTWxwTjJYSC1HRms4Y2l3anR3NnlKQXNOU1Jnai04UmZLeHhwWUo1dURYVTcyMnAwcWc5cENSdk1UWV90SkEtc25yc29NamR1Y1NESnloT21lZnplYTNxZW5kX2h1d28tQ3lTWTZGMlR5NG5fYU5jbWtObThlY3F4QmJ6RThjN2VhQ1doeGJFZmpjMkw4S3JheXVweTVzVzlCZzJBbjVTQVlFTm1rRHEzY0JzUHNGRVk3VHNHYUNtbTFvRER3dDN2?oc=5