Trump’s war on Iran enters a familiar phase
Unable to overthrow Iran's government with US-Israeli bombs, Trump settles on a bipartisan policy of economic strangulation.
President Trump has not achieved regime change in Tehran, nor its surrender to his ultimatum of abandoning nuclear enrichment. With the bombing phase of an unpopular war waged jointly with Israel on pause, Trump is settling on a third, familiar objective: strangling Iran’s economy long-term.
Trump has reportedly instructed aides to prepare for a prolonged naval blockade of Iran. Trump insists that his goal is to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. But it was Trump who tore up the 2015 pact that blocked a path to a bomb, and then shunned Iran’s acceptance of even stricter limits during February’s Omani-brokered talks in Geneva. Therefore, his stated objection to Iranian “nuclear weapons” is a euphemism for Iran having any nuclear program, even for peaceful purposes. As the Wall Street Journal put it, Trump “wants to tighten the grip on the regime until it caves to his key demand: dismantling all of Iran’s nuclear work.” For an Iranian government that developed its enrichment program with heavy investment and sacrifice, that is akin to dismantling its sovereignty.
From the president’s perspective, the other problem with reaching an agreement is that it would formalize the failure of his regime change campaign. For that reason, Iran’s latest proposal – to end the US blockade, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and delay nuclear talks until later – is a non-starter. As one US official explained, “accepting it could appear to deny Mr. Trump a victory.” Or as Eric Brewer, a former senior intelligence analyst for Iran under both Obama and Trump, observed: “Why would you accept the Iranian deal while you are still waiting to see if you can cause some serious economic problems to Iran through this bet on the blockade?” The bet has favorable odds. The US-Israeli bombing campaign has devastated vital Iranian industries, caused massive job losses, and raised food prices. The US blockade is reducing oil exports, Iran’s main source of revenue. The cost of reconstruction, according to one estimate, is at least $270 billion.
Trump’s desired economic strangulation of Iran has the added benefit of being Beltway convention wisdom. Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, could have returned to the Iran nuclear deal that members of his cabinet negotiated under Barack Obama. Instead, as a senior Biden official recalls in Enduring Hostility, a newly published account of US policy toward Iran: “at first we were dragging our feet . . . frankly, the President [Biden] wasn’t into his own policy.”
Indeed, Biden and many of his senior aides were more into Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure.” One of those officials, Richard Nephew, who served as Biden’s Deputy Special Envoy for Iran, remains a steadfast supporter. Nephew opposes a grand bargain with Iran even if it could somehow address all of the United States’ stated grievances. “Any deal that affords Iran widespread sanctions relief—even if it features hard limits on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, missile programs, and support for proxies,” Nephew writes, could give the Iranian government “a new lease on life.” Therefore, diplomacy must be opposed. Trump should only seek a “modest” deal that reopens the Strait of Hormuz while “maintaining intense pressure on the Iranian system,” with the ultimate aim “to get actual regime change.”
Nephew is especially opposed to a peace deal because, he admits, US sanctions are the main source of Iran’s problems, and therefore the main engine of his desired regime change. If the US offers “comprehensive sanctions relief for Iran,” he writes, that “would help flood the country with enough money to overcome its legacy of mismanagement, corruption, and failed governance.” If the US lets Iran access enough money to resolve its problems, that in turn “might relieve popular pressure on the regime.” Better then to let Iran’s population suffer under US sanctions and blockades, and never mind the ripple effects on the global economy.
As for why it’s worth immiserating the people of Iran in the hopes of one day overthrowing their leadership, Nephew is equally blunt. Sure, Iranian leaders “seem keen on reaching a broader peace settlement,” but that is not enough. Unfortunately, “there is no proof whatsoever that they are willing to fundamentally change the character of their government.” Specifically, as the past few months have shown, “they are all determined to defeat the United States and strengthen the Islamic Republic.” For operating under the belief that they can resist an unprovoked war of aggression, this means that they “are every bit as extreme as their predecessors.”
Alternatively, the extremists are those in Washington – under Trump, Biden, and now Trump once again – who support impoverishing the people of Iran simply because their government defends itself. Another top Biden official, Amos Hochstein, recently acknowledged that he supported Trump’s first bombing of Iran last June, and that a second-term Biden presidency would have likely done the same.
The bipartisan consensus around regime change and economic strangulation in Iran evokes an observation by Henry Precht, a former State Dept. Director for Iranian Affairs, nearly 40 years ago. “The American consensus on Iran is persistent and clear,” Precht wrote in 1988. “The leaders in Tehran are crazy, blindly ideological, resistant to international law and opinion, and virtually impossible to deal with.” In reality, he added, “the immediate agenda of the Islamic Republic’s leaders is political and economic independence at home, not dominion abroad.”
Because US leaders from both parties are united behind dominion abroad, Iran must therefore be denied economic survival. Even if Trump does not resume bombing Iran, there is little opposition to the traditional policy of making its people suffer.
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