What if Trump is not dumb but with a strong self-interest and self-preservation instinct?
Might he start a war to make sure he’s not impeached or forced to resign?
With Iran:
How Trump would like things to play out:
- violate the agreement: looks tough, keeps a campaign promise, destroy Obama’s legacy
- Iran takes this pretext to re-start their nuclear program: they feel justified as they are not the 1st party to violate the agreement
- Israel, backed by the US, strikes Iran to avoid them building a nuclear bomb.
Possibly: Europe saw what Trump was doing, manage to convince Iran to stay in the agreement so as not to give more legitimate reasons for Israel to step in. They might advocate patience if they hope that Trump will not be there in a few months time, and the new US congress will restart the agreement.
With Korea:
How Trump would like it:
- negotiations and summit: makes him look bold and to achieve something nobody else did
- negotiations fail.
- which gives the perfect pretext to nuke North Korea: look we tried everything, there was no other solution.
Then it makes sense to torpedo the Iran deal at the same time, because they don’t hope nor want the North Korea talks to succeed anyway.