What Will Donald Trump Do About Iran?

Council on  Foreign Policy

Post by James M. Lindsay

One of the many complex foreign policy problems that Donald Trump will inherit when he takes office in just over two weeks is Iran. It is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear power, its robust ballistic missile program continues to progress, and it sees the United States as the main obstacle to its domination of the Middle East. How will Trump respond?

That question is easy to answer because Trump has been consistent about his plans: He will return to his first administration’s policy of “maximum pressure.” That effort sought to turn the economic screws on Iran by expanding U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic and ratcheting up the enforcement of sanctions already in place. The goal was not regime change but rather forcing Tehran to limit its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and curb support for the regional militias that made up the so-called axis of resistance.

Maximum pressure certainly squeezed the Iranian economy. It failed, however, to force Tehran to the bargaining table. Even as its economy faltered and its foreign reserves dwindled, Iran continued its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, expanded its support for its regional proxies, and even launched a missile attack against a U.S. base in Iraq in 2020.

Would the maximum pressure campaign have paid off had the Biden administration kept it in place? Trump thinks so. But that is for historians and partisans to debate. The question now is, will maximum pressure work in today’s very different geopolitical context?

The evidence on that score is mixed. Israel’s wars against Hamas and Hezbollah, and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, have weakened Iran’s position in the region. Its proxies are fewer and weaker than just six months ago. Beyond that, Israel’s October retaliatory air strikes destroyed much of Iran’s air defenses, leaving it open to further military attacks. That vulnerability, coupled with Iran’s economic woes and domestic unrest, may be why Iran’s foreign minister said today that Iran is looking to resume nuclear talks.

By the same token, however, a maximum pressure strategy takes time to work. That could be in short supply, at least when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. Iran intensified its uranium-enrichment efforts after Trump terminated the 2015 nuclear deal that the Obama administration negotiated. By most estimates, Iran can now build a small number of nuclear weapons within weeks of deciding to cross the nuclear threshold.

Other great powers will also undermine the maximum pressure policy. China and Russia have both skirted or ignored existing U.S. and multilateral sanctions on Iran. They are unlikely to comply with them now unless they get something significant from the United States in return. Trump may be unwilling or unable to provide that enticement. If Tehran believes that Beijing and Moscow have its back, resistance becomes a more feasible strategy. Tehran could even use negotiations as a way to buy time to address its vulnerabilities.

Even if Iran enters into negotiations in good faith, Trump’s efforts could stumble over deciding what deal is good enough. The ideological diversity of his team, composed as it is of hardliners and American Firsters, makes it likely they will argue over what Tehran needs to concede to make a deal worthwhile. That internal division could torpedo the effort to get a deal.

All of this raises the question of what happens if talks either do not begin or, perhaps more likely, go nowhere once they do. Calls for the United States to attack Iran’s nuclear sites are likely to mount if the maximum pressure campaign does not produce quick results. Trump will also likely hear calls that he should encourage Israel to attack Iran, though Israel lacks the capability to destroy Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.

Tehran will be assessing Trump’s willingness to use military force, as well as Israel’s military capabilities, as it thinks about negotiations. Iranian leaders know he ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020, spoke on the campaign trail about blowing Iran “to smithereens,” and has said that Israel should hit Iran’s nuclear sites. But they also know that he campaigned against America’s “forever wars” in the Middle East while boasting, wrongly, that he is “the only president in seventy-two years” that “had no wars.” And they have to assess whether efforts by Iranian agents to assassinate Trump, something they have denied, might influence his thinking about military options.

Resorting to military force, whether with direct U.S. action or by encouraging Israel to attack, would be a major roll of the dice. It might succeed beyond its planners’ wildest dreams and usher in a new, more peaceful era in the Middle East. Or, like the invasion of Iraq, it may open a Pandora’s Box of problems that will haunt the region and the United States for years to come. But, and this is always worth keeping in mind, letting Iran continue its nuclear and ballistic missile programs while it rebuilds its axis of resistance has costs of its own.

So here’s to hoping that a return to the maximum pressure strategy works, and we discover that the Trump administration has indeed mastered the art of the deal.

What Trump Is Saying

Trump is famous for his pugnacious and often uncivil attacks on political opponents. So it is worth noting his respectful comments on the passing of former President Jimmy Carter. Trump first posted his “gratitude” for Carter’s service and extended his condolences to the Carter family.

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