Abstract:
major significant shift on how it addresses the Iranian nuclear threat. In 2018, US under
Donald Trump administration decided to withdraw from Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), an agreement that just made in 2015 by US, Iran and P5+1 countries to address
Iranian nuclear weapon development. Having said that, this paper aims to analyze the role of
Donald Trump’s idiosyncratic factors in the correlation with US’ decision to withdraw from
JCPOA deal. By using Jerrold Post framework, this thesis explores Trump’s personal
background, personality, worldview, and leadership style. This analysis will be connected
with the framework of Herman’s Leadership Type Analysis to discuss its correlation with US
decision to withdraw from the deal.
This research found several main findings. First, Trump’s personality highlights his high
level of self narcissism, lack of trust, and binary thinking made him believe that the deal
made US losing to Iran. Second, his background in business and military shaped him to be an
ambitious and aggressive person, which led him to withdraw the deal despite resistance from
US internal administration and international allies. Third, his worldview reveals his
acknowledgment of world strategic competition and the importance of military and economy
power as the main tools in achieving US interest. Thus, instead of making a deal, Trump
believes that US should have tripled the sanction to stop Iran nuclear weapon ambition.
Lastly, his leadership style reveals that he has shaped the decision making process to be in
favor of his own instinct and his own values despite political constraint in the US foreign
policy structure.
