Only Trump Can Go to Tehran

Foreign Policy-Jan12th2025

By Sina Azodi, a professorial lecturer of international affairs at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs specializing in Iran’s nuclear program and national security.

When preparing for his historic trip to China in 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon made handwritten notes. Among them were scribblings under the headings “What they want” and “What we want.” Nixon and his talented national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, made history with that trip and by opening to China, a country that had been isolated and disconnected from the United States for decades. Having built much of his political career on opposing communist influence—particularly during his tenure in Congress and as vice president—Nixon possessed the credibility to engage with China without being accused of weakness. For a leader with fewer conservative bona fides, such a bold diplomatic initiative would have been politically untenable.

This paradoxical combination of hawkish reputation and pragmatic diplomacy led to the adage “Only Nixon can go to China,” highlighting the unique circumstances and character that enabled a historic rapprochement.

For the isolated Chinese government, a rapprochement with Washington was necessary because the ideological and geopolitical rift between China and the Soviet Union had deepened by the late 1960s and border clashes in 1969 along the Ussuri River only highlighted the increasing hostilities between the two nations. Domestically, China’s economy was also struggling, and improved relations with the United States promised avenues for economic engagement and modernization.

Similar to Nixon and his hawkish views on communism, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is widely known to be hawkish on Iran. He withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and reimposed U.S. economic sanctions under the so-called maximum pressure campaign, claiming that Iran under such an economic chokehold would seek a “better” deal. He also took the unprecedented step of assassinating Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force, in January 2020.

However, despite his harsh rhetoric, Trump has repeatedly claimed that he is not seeking a regime change in Iran and also that he wants to have better relations with the country. On the campaign trail last year, he also identified the use of nuclear weapons as “the single biggest threat to the world.” While in office, he repeatedly tried to talk to Iran’s leadership, including making an attempt in August 2019 to meet with then-Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in France and in September 2019 with Iran’s then-president, Hassan Rouhani. After leaving office, Trump has expressed interest in transforming U.S.-Iranian relations. Last August, for example, he stated, “I’m not looking to be bad to Iran. … We’re going to be friendly, but they can’t have a nuclear weapon.” That friendliness did not come through during Trump’s first term for several reasons.

First, while Trump himself was interested in talking to the Iranians, he was surrounded by ideological hawks, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton, who had been advocating for “bombing Iran” for years. In 2014, for example, Pompeo had proposed bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities by stating that “it’s under 2,000 [flight] sorties to destroy the Iranian nuclear capacity.” Similarly, Bolton had in the past called for bombing Iran’s nuclear program. Both individuals played a pivotal role in undermining diplomacy between the two countries. For example, when Sen. Rand Paul, ostensibly on behalf of Trump, invited Zarif to the Oval Office in July 2019, Bolton, according to his memoir, prepared his resignation letter. While Zarif, acting on Tehran’s orders, rejected the invitation and was sanctioned for it, the episode nonetheless highlights the extent to which Bolton opposed diplomacy with Iran.

Furthermore, Zarif’s latest memoir, The Audacity of Resilience, sheds light on how Pompeo personally intervened to block the so-called Moscow Initiative in July 2020, when Iran and the United States would take reciprocal measures to resolve the issues pertaining to sanctions relief and Tehran’s nuclear program. Thanks to the chief diplomat’s intervention, the opportunity for diplomacy between Tehran and Washington collapsed again.

Second, in Trump’s first term, Iran’s geostrategic position was far more favorable compared with now, and Tehran saw no need to talk to the United States or to de-escalate tensions in the region. In fact, it did the opposite. When then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went to Tehran in June 2019 as an intermediary between Iran and the United States, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei pointedly rejected any talks with Washington, stating that “I do not consider Trump as a person worth exchanging any message with, and I have no answer for him, nor will I respond to him in the future.” In September 2019, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels struck two key oil installations inside Saudi Arabia, suspending half of the country’s daily production. In short, Tehran adopted a confident and assertive stance, maintaining an offensive posture in its regional activities. Concurrently, it began expanding its nuclear capabilities, ditching the nuclear agreement’s limitations.

Read more on original:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/08/only-trump-can-go-to-tehran/