Cartoon by Jimmy Margulies

U.S. policy towards Iran under Trump 2.0

By Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (Retd)

Canakya Forum: When Donald Trump first came to power as President of the US in Jan 2017, it was clear that he would target Iran and work on regime change through a strategy of diplomacy and coercion without necessarily going militarily ballistic. That is exactly what he did.  He withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the Iran nuclear deal, in May 2018. This move was aimed at pressuring Iran to renegotiate the deal and address other US concerns.

The latter extended to Iran’s support for terrorism triggering the demand to declare it a terrorist supporting state. The fact that Iran’s proxies, which spread far and wide in the Levant, went as deep south as Yemen and gave it disproportionate power, also drew the US ire. The theological rule, lack of democracy and questionable human rights, especially related to women, were all aspects that were anathema to the US establishment and its chosen path of bringing most of the world closer to the ideology of liberal democracy.

There were many other nations similarly disposed against US hegemony which had been neutralized in the past, Libya being the most recent. Some had ideological leanings that did not match US interests, but their political pursuits did not pose any major perceived threat to US interests. Prime among them were the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and several other Gulf nations besides Egypt. Primarily it was Iran and its cohorts which were seen by the US establishment as a threat.

US-Iran Relations in the Pre 1979 Era

Before dwelling on the threat perception as viewed by Trump 1.0 and likely to be viewed by Trump 2.0 as well, it would be in order to trace how a flourishing Iran-US relationship of the 50s to the 70s came to become one of the world’s most deadly rivalries. Till 1979 Iran and the US enjoyed a wholesome relationship of cooperation for mutual interests.  Iran was a major supplier of oil to the US and its allies, and the relationship ensured a stable flow of energy resources during a time of global reliance on Middle Eastern oil. The Shah used oil revenues to modernise Iran’s economy, and US corporations benefited from contracts in infrastructure, defence, and industry.

The US sold advanced weaponry to Iran, making it one of the largest recipients of American arms during this period. The Shah’s regime was considered a regional “policeman” for the US, tasked with maintaining stability in the Persian Gulf after the British withdrawal in the early 1970s. More than anything else it was the autocratic rule of Reza Pahlavi Shah of Iran which led to his overthrow by a popular revolution which came to be dominated by two themes.

First, it brought the Iranian clergy to power and second, as a consequence of the first, an overt Shia Islamic domination of the ideological and theological discourse of the nation came into place.

The new leadership adopted a hugely anti US stance due to the latter’s support to the deposed Shah and for the support it extended to the state of Israel without any commensurate effort to find an equitable solution to the Palestinian problem. Iran, as a Shia theological state, in direct opposition to the Sunni Saudi Arabian and the Gulf sheikhdoms, chose to be more anti-Israel than any other Middle Eastern state. It thus assumed the lead in the struggle against Israel as against the relatively low-profile anti-Israel stance of many of the Arab states. That was in direct conflict against US interests.

The relationship had deteriorated as a result of the 54 US hostages taken by Iran after students stormed the US embassy in Tehran on 4 Nov 1979. The 444 days hostage crisis deeply affected US-Iran relations and had a lasting impact on both nations’ political landscapes over the next forty years and continues to the day >>>