How Trump Can Offer Iran a Way Out

Richard Haass: “There is no easy option without downsides. The best course of action for Trump now would be to give Iran one last chance to accept a diplomatic deal. Such a proposal would require that Iran agree to hand over all of its enriched uranium, dismantle centrifuges and other known elements of its nuclear programme, and agree to open-ended inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

“Such an offer would include relief for Iran from economic sanctions, a withdrawal of the US threat to attack, a larger ceasefire and some face-saving mechanism by which Iran could participate in a regional uranium enrichment consortium tied to the generation of nuclear energy, not weapons.”

“Iran might accept it. After all, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini reluctantly agreed to an end to the war with Iraq in 1988 to save the 1979 revolution that brought the Islamic Republic into existence. Khomeini compared making this decision to drinking poison.”