Trump torn over war on Iran ahead of US midterms: Ex-US envoy

Tehran's foreign minister, Abbas Arrachi, says his country is fully prepared if the war with the U.S. resumes. His comments come after Donald Trump said he rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran says it's still waiting for an official response from Washington through mediators. We are fully prepared for the time, for the war to be resumed. And I repeat, we stand firm in the face of any new aggression, even it comes to a doomsday war. But at the same time, we are ready, we stand ready for diplomacy. It is up to President Trump to choose. And joining me now from Washington is Richard Schmierer. He is a former U.S. ambassador to Oman and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. Richard, good to have you again on the program. So Donald Trump, he's basically kicking the can down the road here, rejecting the Iranian proposal of reopening the Strait within seven days. Is time on Donald Trump's side here? Well, that's a very interesting question. First, greetings to you and your viewers. In some respects, he certainly wants to delay things until after the November 3rd elections. But on the other hand, the war is very unpopular. Gas and diesel prices in the U.S. are very high. So he has the difficult assignment of trying to sell a policy that the Americans do not support. So if the war were to end, that would be to his advantage. The question would be on what terms. And if he makes significant concessions to bring it to an end, that would also be politically difficult. So I think he's stuck between delaying it till after the elections or making some kind of concessions to get the war to end before the election. So if Trump wants or he thinks that Iran will sort of want to drag this war out to the midterm elections, wouldn't it be a good idea then to accept this offer, which would have actually reopened the strait before the midterms, potentially giving him a win that he could sell to the American voters? Well, you're correct. That would be the upside to accepting the deal, because it would essentially bring the conflict to an end. The problem is he has been criticized for the terms of the MOU back in June. And the terms that Iran offered are very similar to those in the MOU. So if he were, for example, to release frozen Iranian assets or to take the sanctions off of Iranian oil before the election, that could be politically vulnerable for him. So I think he's trying to find the middle ground between telling the American people this will all end soon, but not actually bringing it to an end before the election. But you know, waiting for a better deal and for that economic pressure to inflict even more pain on Iran, will that really make Tehran more likely to go along with what the U.S. wants? Well, it's hard to say because we don't know what the outcome of the November elections will be. It is likely that the Democrats will take control of at least one of the houses of Congress and that will put more pressure on President Trump to do something to bring this war to an end. How Iran would respond to that kind of a development is hard to say, but it does look like Iran wants to bring this to an end, essentially on the terms of the MOU and potentially after the election, they might get Trump to agree to do that. Now, Iran's proposal to end this war, as you mentioned, it was basically about returning to what was already agreed in that MOU, at least according to Abbas Arachi. Do you think that this was a proposal coming from a position of weakness or was this a proposal offering a genuine path to end the conflict on terms that both sides were basically already okay with? Well, to some extent, it might have been an attempt to effectively call Trump's bluff by saying we're prepared to go back to what you already agreed to, but Trump obviously was not willing to do that. What we also don't know is that the other faction in the Iranian leadership, specifically the IRGC, how they view this. This seems to have come from the political leadership and they may be very interested in a deal to end the war. Whether the IRGC is on board with that is something I think we need to question. Well, that's what I'm also wondering here, Richard. Now that Arachi didn't actually succeed with this proposal, does that mean that the next steps are now going to be up to that more hawkish leadership of the IRGC? Well, certainly I think we will continue to see very harsh rhetoric from the Iranians. I don't think we will see the resumption of military action started by Iran and I don't think President Trump wants to restart military action either. So I think, yes, we'll see rhetoric from both sides threatening military action, but I do think what we'll actually see between now and November 3rd is a continued stalemate, a lot of belligerent rhetoric, and then hopefully after November 3rd, some actual diplomatic movement towards a resolution. Richard Schmierer, a former U.S. ambassador to Oman, it was very good to have you on the program. Thank you so much for joining us. It was good to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you.