Opinion | Trump’s Slouching Toward War With Iran Is a Disgrace

Where exactly the truth lies in the allegations and counter-allegations around the downing of the RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone — essentially a dispute over whether it had violated Iranian airspace — and the recent attacks on shipping in the Gulf of Oman is unclear. Iran has behaved provocatively. Then again, it has been provoked. It could not ignore the deployment to the region of some 2,500 American troops, an aircraft carrier group, B-52 bombers, missile batteries and the rest. It has said it does not seek war. Nor will it accept humiliation.

“The Trump administration policy has been unnecessary, counter-strategic and dangerous,” Kerry told me. “It has completely upended the legitimacy of approaching certain issues — Yemen, Hezbollah, missile technology — while having the nuclear issue in a box in the most accountable, transparent nuclear deal on the planet.

“All they have done is given life to the deeply held Iranian belief that you cannot trust or negotiate with the United States, while trying to squeeze Iran into economic oblivion in pursuit of regime change that would only hand power to the hard-line Republican Guards, not some democrat.”

The Islamic Republic is a repressive regime with a hideous human rights record that underwrites Hezbollah and pursues interests opposed to America’s across the Middle East. Since 1979, it has been an enemy of the United States. It is also a sophisticated society and substantial economy whose highly educated population seeks greater contacts with the West. Its political system is not monolithic.

The strategic thinking behind the imperfect but effective nuclear deal, the fruit of painstaking diplomacy, was that it might over time bolster the more moderate forces in Iran. Trump’s ripping-up of the deal was a gift to the hard-liners. This month, Iran said it would stop honoring the limit on how much low-enriched uranium it is allowed under the deal to stockpile. How is that good for the United States, or indeed for Israel?

The American miscalculation has been flagrant. Kerry said: “The C.I.A. has evidently been unable to penetrate Trump’s mind with a psychological profile of the people he’s dealing with. The Iranians have been around for several thousand years. This policy just tightens their willpower to hang in there.”

Trump the showman has lied and bragged his way into this mess. He tore up the nuclear deal only to declare later that his aim was to keep Iran from a bomb, which is what the deal did. He is a bully whose chief interests are his hold on power and his business empire. Those urges are tugging in opposing directions over Iran; hence the chaos.