‘Everyone thinks we have magic powers’: Biden seeks a balance on Iran

Politico – 10/25/2022

President Joe Biden faces growing calls from activists and even a former crown prince to openly back regime change in Iran as the country’s Islamist rulers face a wave of protests.

But Biden and his aides are unwilling to go that far.

Instead, the administration is charting a middle path — one that voices support for the Iranian protesters and helps them through both easing and imposing some sanctions, but which falls short of an all-out pressure campaign to isolate Iran’s government or abandon nuclear talks with the regime, according to six U.S. officials familiar with the issue.

This week, the administration is expected to unveil more sanctions on Iran related to the protests. Among the possible targets are mid-level Iranian police commanders who have abused demonstrators.

The overall strategy is likely to disappoint many in a complex constellation of activists whose voices are driving much of the public debate about the Iranian regime. It also could make crafting U.S. policy toward the Middle East even harder, especially if Iran’s regime snuffs out the protests and emerges more emboldened to pursue a nuclear program and cause trouble in the region.

But the Biden administration is unified on the approach, according to those involved in discussions. “There aren’t camps,” a State Department official said.

The U.S. officials said they must factor in everything from the human rights demands of Iran’s protesters — many of them young and female — to the U.S. preference for using diplomacy to keep Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Iran’s decision to sell drones and other weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine also is complicating the picture.

“It’s a dilemma: How do you square your short-term national security imperatives, like preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, with the longer-term goal of encouraging positive political change in Iran?” asked Michael Singh, a former National Security Council official under then-President George W. Bush, about what faces Biden and his team. “These things are not mutually exclusive. Your policy success will come down to advancing both goals in parallel.”

But the reality, U.S. officials said, is that the Biden administration has relatively limited tools to help the demonstrators keep up the pressure on the regime. Already, regime forces have cracked down on the protests, killing hundreds and imprisoning thousands.

“It’s unpredictable, it’s emotional, there are kids being shot, and everyone thinks we have magic powers,” one U.S. official familiar with the issue said of the protest movement.

The U.S. officials POLITICO interviewed hold a variety of positions in the administration. They all spoke on condition of anonymity in part because of the sensitivity of the topic.

The protests began in mid-September following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She is suspected of having been beaten after she was taken into custody by Iran’s morality police, who reportedly accused her of not properly wearing a headscarf. Soon, some Iranian women began taking off their headscarves in public, violating Iran’s Islam-based laws, and Iranians of all backgrounds began marching.

The demonstrations have continued for weeks, despite crackdowns by regime security forces, along with protesters’ demands ranging from more rights for women to an end to their Islamist government. The movement appears largely leaderless at this point.

Prominent Iranians inside and outside the country have shown solidarity with the protesters, often through social media. And while many are calling for the U.S. to take a tougher-than-ever stance against Iran, they often disagree about what that should look like.

Among those opposing the regime is Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince of Iran, whose father was deposed as Iran’s shah during the late 1970s revolution that paved the way for the Islamist regime.

Pahlavi, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area and says he supports a secular democracy in Iran, has called for the international community and the United States to back regime change in Tehran, though without military intervention.