For people in Washington who focus on Iran and can tune out the rest of the Trump-induced chaos, the city feels kind of like it did a decade ago when then-President Barack Obama’s administration was negotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The players are different, of course, but the same binary arguments—whether diplomacy or military action is the best way to deal with Iran’s nuclear program—are dominating the debate within the foreign-policy community.
Like in 2015, each side of the debate believes it is offering a morally and strategically superior alternative to the other. In reality, both options are suboptimal.
The two seemingly opposing policies—engaging in negotiations versus conducting military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities—are not actually opposites. Either one would likely have the same effect: providing a lifeline to leaders of a terrible regime at a moment when it seems most vulnerable.
It is important to understand that Iran’s nuclear program is a problem because of the nature of the Iranian regime, which is profoundly repressive at home and indefatigably aggressive abroad. The result is one of the worst offenders of human rights in the world and a leadership whose national security doctrine is to sow as much chaos around the Middle East as possible. These features of the Iranian political order, which date back to the consolidation of clerical rule in the years immediately following the 1979 revolution, help make the regime what it is.
Only once policymakers in Washington understand the Iranian sociopolitical order that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor built does a superior policy become clear: doing more of what Washington has already been doing. Maintaining sanctions on Iran, preventing the regime and its proxies from destabilizing the region, and responding to them when they try, as well as providing moral support for the Iranian opposition, provide the United States with the best chance for the regime to collapse in on itself.
Such an approach is not without risk, however, as Iranian scientists continue to work diligently to develop their nuclear program. But it is the most realistic and feasible policy toward rendering Tehran’s nuclear program less worrisome.
The argument that both negotiations and military strikes will help the Iranian leadership goes against the grain in Washington, where analysts and officials are deeply invested in their positions. Under these circumstances, it is worth exploring the likely result of these two flawed approaches.
When it comes to negotiations, it seems obvious that the Iranians are not going to give up something of great value—an unfettered nuclear program—without exacting a price from the United States. In return for limits on Iran’s nuclear development, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s negotiators will want sanctions relief and assurances that any limits placed on Iran’s nuclear program will be temporary.
Under the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, the restrictions placed on Tehran, including limits on centrifuges, heavy water production, and uranium enrichment, came to an end after 10 or 15 years. This was acceptable to Iran’s leadership because it had a longer view than its American counterparts and was able to preserve its nuclear program. This is something that tends to be lost among American negotiators and policymakers more generally: Islamists always believe they have time on their side. This might prove true for Team Trump’s nuclear deal as well, which will also likely require temporary limits. Without these kinds of provisions, Khamenei is unlikely to accede to a deal.
An agreement of this nature has notable upsides for the Iranians, who will sell a lot of oil and do lots of business with European and American firms. Meanwhile, their nuclear research will continue (albeit temporarily circumscribed) and all the extra cash on hand will help the defenders of the regime maintain their grip on power.
For their part, military operations—especially if the United States conducted them—would likely do a lot of damage to Iran’s nuclear program and set it back (which is a good thing). Yet given how little insight Washington has about the state of Iran’s nuclear development, it would be hard to know how much damage American bombs would do and how much of Tehran’s program would be left. Assuming major parts of Iran’s nuclear research sites are hidden and buried—and consequently beyond the reach of American arms—a U.S. strike would likely encourage the regime to weaponize and speed up its effort to use whatever remains of the program.
There is also another risk to using military force. While it is hard to know exactly how unpopular the regime is in Iran, there is not an insignificant number of people who have consistently turned out into the streets to oppose it. Thus, U.S. airstrikes would likely put members of the Iranian opposition in an awkward situation politically, making it difficult for them to oppose the regime even as Khamenei mobilizes his support base in response. In an unintended way, a policy of nonproliferation by force could very well help the regime reignite the anti-American ardor that helped fuel the revolution almost five decades ago, thus creating a rally-around-the-flag effect that would hurt the opposition. Why would policymakers want to do that?
If Iran’s nuclear program is threatening because the Iranian regime is threatening, it stands to reason that if the regime were to fall and a new political order that is less hostile to the West and its neighbors were to emerge, Iran’s nuclear program would be less threatening. That’s why U.S. policy should not be geared toward negotiating a JCPOA 2.0 or undertaking military operations but rather directed at the end of the regime—though not by marching armies on Tehran.
In fact, this is perhaps the worst moment for negotiations or airstrikes, as the regime seems weak. Iran’s economy is reeling under sanctions, with unemployment reportedly above 70 percent. Its currency has lost 50 percent of its value over the last 12 months, and food prices are up 70 percent. Meanwhile, Khamenei is old and sick, and much of the population is restive and seeking change. Washington should help accentuate the Iranian regime’s contradictions, problems, and vulnerabilities—not help smooth them over through both sanctions relief and the added legitimacy of being a party to a new nuclear agreement. That means maintaining crippling sanctions, deterring and containing Iranian adventurism in the Middle East and beyond (which does not preclude military action), and restoring the Voice of America (VOA) Persian Service and Radio Farda, which the Trump administration ended when it recently dismantled the VOA and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
There are uncertainties to this approach, of course. The regime could fall and something worse could take its place. The time frame for its collapse is unpredictable: Will it take weeks, months, years, or ever? No one knows. During that period, the Iranians could conceivably weaponize their nuclear program. Yet the clerical regime is repressive, violent, and menacing. Why help it with negotiations or airstrikes? It seems that Washington—locked in a battle with itself between two options—is unable to see how both paths only prolong the regime’s threat to the region and the suffering of ordinary Iranians.
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