Nuclear Issues

Payam Ghalehdar analyzes Donald Trump's policy towards Iran.

By putting Iran "on notice” for its aggressive behavior, President Trump has taken aim at a country that’s opposed by many U.S. allies. Iran is a convenient enemy for Trump. Israel and the Gulf Arab states share the administration’s antipathy toward Iran, and the regime’s hard-liners gave Trump a pretext with a ballistic missile test last weekend that arguably violated a U.N. Security Council resolution. But he has begun this confrontation without much preparation or strategic planning, continuing the haphazard pattern of his first two weeks in office.

The nuclear issue has dominated relations between the US and Iran over the past decade. Now that the two countries have shelved that issue by agreeing to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it is appropriate to ask where and how the national interests of both countries converge and conflict.

"...[K]eeping Iran at arm's length (or worse) reduces U.S. diplomatic leverage and flexibility. As long as U.S. Middle East policy remains fixated on its 'special relationships' with Israel, Saudi Arabia, and to some extent Egypt, these states will continue to take U.S. support for granted and ignore U.S. preferences more often than we'd like. But if the United States had decent working relations with every state in the region — including Iran — it could work constructively with any or all of them."

"Now that President Barack Obama has secured more than enough votes in the U.S. Senate to assure the implementation of the agreement with Iran on nuclear issues and sanctions, we can focus on the lessons learned from the process’ intense political dynamics. Three in particular stand out: U.S.-Israeli, U.S.-Saudi Arabian/Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and GCC-Iranian relations. U.S.-Israeli bilateral ties get the most attention these days, but all three are equally important, and turbulent in their own ways."

"..."[I]t is time for the Prime Minister to come to his senses and to understand that a small country, whose very existence depends today on the United States, cannot physically block a major presidential initiative. Instead, he would be wise to work with the American administration to close gaps in the agreement, maintain close intelligence supervision of Iran's observance of the agreement, and even to take advantage of this moment to try and reach an historic defense treaty with the United States."