The Relations Between The USA And Iran Nowadays
President Donald Trump has been out to pick a fight with Iran from the starting days of his presidency. But a set of alarming developments has yanked the rug out from underneath his feet, and the next three months will refract whether Trump will opt to increase his aggressions or find a face-saving exit from his bravado. Only a few months ago, Trump was exuding confidence, having pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, worked with the Saudis to squeeze oil exports and announced the reimposition of sanctions to the pleasure of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
First, Saudi-US relations now arguably face the greatest crisis in history following the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The US has long turned a blind eye to the Saudis involvement in the spread of terrorism, but Trump’s shameless protection of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman — who the CIA believes, with high confidence, ordered the murder — may be considered egregious.
Personally I believe that the relationship between Iran and America has been catastrophically damaged and probably beyond repair at this point. It took close to four decades, since the end of the revolution and hostage crisis, before we were able to come to some sort of slight agreement. The Nuclear Deal was a step in a direction that focused towards developing tolerable communications and relations while testing the waters with being able to build trust not only between America and Iran, but all of the other countries that signed. It was a building block that, as of the end of 2018, was promptly removed. Here we are again at the starting line, except this time it has been pushed back even farther than before. With re-imposed sanctions and Donald Trump’s hostility towards Iran — the petty tweets and uneducated statements have caused a rift to form between America and the Islamic Republic that is deeper than before the Nuclear Deal. There are so many aspects to look at and this is only one of the most recent developments. Healing the wounds between America and Iran for future relations will take us looking back at some of the causes of the rifts which veteran analyst and policy practitioner Robin Wright brilliantly describes below,
“The turning point of the deterioration of the relations between the U. S. and Iran was not the revolution itself, it was after the U. S. took in the Shah and there were fears in Iran among the revolutionaries at a volatile time, fragile state, that the United States was intent to putting the Shah back on the throne. So that’s the moment, and that’s where you find the tensions between these two countries have emanated. ”
Michael Singh follows with his answer to this topic in a bit more expressive terms, “And I think, importantly, this Iran wasn’t a region like Europe or Asia where gradually we’re sort of handing off responsibility to allies. It’s a region where largely we have had to do it ourselves for the most part and haven’t had those local allies to be able to sort of pass responsibility to, which is something kind of frustrates the past couple of presidents, I think in particular. ”
“When it comes to access for the United States in the region, obviously, the Iranians have talked about wanting the U. S. out of the region, and that’s about as diametrically opposed to what we’re trying to accomplish as you can get. So I think it’s less a matter of interests per se because often times, people in this relationship will talk about ‘why can’t we get along?’
It is definitely a unique conflict of circumstances, Iran and America. On the more polarizing side you could look at it from Iran’s point of view and see America as an obstacle that is constantly backing its foes. Singh ends his talk nailing home one of the strongest arguments for achieving change — or if it is even possible to achieve change in Iran:
“Frankly, not to sort of end on a pessimistic note but when you talk about the Middle East, it tends to be inevitable. I don’t see any real prospect for change here because what I think it will take is not just the United States deciding we sort of want to pull back and shift our attention elsewhere, it will take, I think, Iran, deciding that it wants to pursue a fundamentally different strategy in the region. ”
It is easy for me and probably many policy makers/analysts to blame Trump over the situation between Iran and America, because to be quite honest he is definitely not making anything better. That’s apparent to everyone whether they support Trump or not. He is not keen on making any advancements with Iran. Unfortunately, we have made progress. It has been slow but we made progress during Obama’s last few years. I would not call it significant progress but Trump sort of just set us back to where we were before the nuclear deal and with a world of sanctions crashing down over the country. I believe the effects of Trumps administration has had worse implications on the people of Iran and I think in the long run that’s what will hurt our country more than any policy that’s put into place. The people have less power but collectively they are the force that makes everything move. With the growing unrest of the people the implications will have a long lasting effect on the view on America. The people of Iran will forever be bothered by Donald Trump’s policies which will fuel their discontent towards America.
The final quote from this meeting was from Robert Malley, who says:
“Both Democrats and Republicans have engaged in coercion and engagement, and both have failed. I mean, this is a clear case of bipartisan fail – the verdict is clear – if the goal was to have a normal relationship with Iran. ”
“There’s also a current dynamic and unique features of the region, and of Iran in the region, and the U. S. in the region… It’s a deeply polarized region… and a deeply polarized region in which Iran wants to play a bigger regional role. . . and a region in which the U. S. has deep strategic interests. . . . So you combine those three, and Iran being on the other side of the equation vis-a-vis the U. S. most of these issues. You don’t have that with North Korea. ”
“Right now, let’s at least prevent things from getting worse, prevent escalation, which to this day you could happen. I don’t think either the United States or Iran is pining for war, but in a state where we have no diplomacy, no diplomatic connections, with all the reasons I just described it – so polarized and so unified at the same time – anything could happen at any time, in Yemen, in Syria, in Iraq, in the Persian Gulf… and could lead to confrontation that would involve the U. S. and Iran directly. ”
In conclusion, at this moment in time, no one part of Iran is likely to prevail single handedly on this matter. Despite this, for the regular Iranian joe, the hope is not about overturning decades of hostility toward and between the United States overnight. Rather, the hope is that some much-delayed policy introspection can start sooner rather than later, especially if the country deals with some historical realities about why this state of affairs between Iran and the United States exists in the first place.
Works Cited
- “Does the U. S. -Iran Relationship Have a Future?” Wilson Center, 28 Feb. 2019, www. wilsoncenter. org/event/does-the-us-iran-relationship-have-future.
- “Does the U. S. -Iran Relationship Have a Future?” Wilson Center, 28 Feb. 2019, www. wilsoncenter. org/event/does-the-us-iran-relationship-have-future.
- Vatanka, Alex. “Iran and the United States Can Be Friends. ” Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy, 28 Nov. 2018, foreignpolicy. com/2018/11/28/iran-and-the-united-states-can-be-friends/.
- “YouTube. ” YouTube, 26 Feb. 2019, youtu. be/mKP771YKVqo.
