The Return of Trump's Iran Obsession

All the evidence we have at the moment tells us that hawks will dominate Trump’s Iran policy just as much as they did last time.

Early reports indicate that the incoming Trump administration will seek to intensify broad sanctions against Iran and continue the “maximum pressure” policy that Trump began in 2018. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the president-elect “plans to drastically increase sanctions on Iran and throttle its oil sales as part of an aggressive strategy to undercut Tehran’s support of violent Mideast proxies and its nuclear program.” That is consistent with what Trump and his advisers have been saying during the election campaign, but it is the first confirmation since the election that Trump intends to follow through with a more combative policy towards Iran.

Trump’s former Iran envoy at the State Department, Brian Hook, is reportedly coordinating the transition at State. That suggests that Hook could serve in a top position at the department, and it signals that Iran policy will be once again dominated by the hawks in Trump’s orbit. Iran hawks in Washington have been very pleased with the news of Hook’s involvement in the transition. Mark Dubowitz, president of the hardline, anti-Iranian think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and prominent supporter of the “maximum pressure” campaign, said, “I couldn’t think of a better person to lead the transition team given Brian’s experience in senior roles at the State Department.”

There are also reports that Mike Pompeo is in the running to be appointed as Secretary of Defense. According to recent reporting, Sen. Tom Cotton would not accept a position in the administration, and that makes it more likely that Pompeo would get the appointment. Pompeo was one of the chief architects of the maximum pressure policy and one of the most strident Iran hawks in the first term. It was Pompeo who issued a list of 12 extensive demands that many analysts considered tantamount to a regime change policy. A return of Pompeo to government would put an aggressive hardliner and established Trump loyalist at the heart of the administration’s decision-making.

The hawkish direction of Trump’s Iran policy is not surprising. Trump’s advisers have been talking about the “return of maximum pressure” for months. One of Trump’s former National Security Advisors, Robert O’Brien, boasted about this in an article for Foreign Affairs earlier this year. To hear O’Brien tell it, the “maximum pressure” campaign was a success that yielded major gains for U.S. interests, but that is nothing more than self-serving spin.   

O’Brien also laid out a plan for intensified economic warfare and an increase in the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East: “Maximum pressure would also mean deploying more maritime and aviation assets to the Middle East, making it clear not only to Tehran but also to American allies that the U.S. military’s focus in the region was on deterring Iran, finally moving past the counterinsurgency orientation of the past two decades.” That suggests that Trump’s Iran policy would increase the risk of direct U.S.-Iranian confrontation that has already been rising over the last year because of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and exchanges of fire between Israel and Iran.

There is a false story that Iran hawks have been telling for the last four years that Trump’s Iran policy was some sort of triumph until it was undone by Biden’s “weakness.” As a candidate, Trump promoted this narrative by falsely claiming that Biden had lifted all sanctions and “given” Iran lots of money. The reality is that Biden largely kept Trump’s Iran policy in place with similarly poor results. Thanks to the continuation of broad sanctions and Israeli sabotage attacks, Iran’s nuclear program has been steadily expanding. Iran has also been adapting to U.S. sanctions and cultivating closer ties with other states, including Russia and China, to reduce the impact of sanctions on the Iranian economy. An intensified sanctions regime would undoubtedly inflict more punishment on the Iranian people, but it would be just as ineffective and counterproductive as the sanctions have been for the last six years.

The results of “maximum pressure” during Trump’s first term were terrible for U.S. interests and regional stability. Not only did Iran stop complying with the provisions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in response to the Trump administration’s sanctions and threats, but Iranian-backed militias began attacking U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria and carried out attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. These tensions continued building until Trump ordered the assassination of IRGC Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. That led to the first direct Iranian missile attack on U.S. forces, and during that attack dozens of U.S. troops suffered serious traumatic brain injuries. The U.S. and Iran came dangerously close to war because of the crisis created by Trump’s hardline policies. Repeating the same policy errors would likely lead to another war scare and possibly to direct conflict.  

The first Trump administration showed no real interest in negotiating with Iran, and there is not much reason to expect anything different the second time around. Trump has occasionally suggested that he would like to make a deal with Iran, but he said much the same thing last time while taking actions that made negotiations impossible. If the next Trump administration is staffed by many of the same people that worked in the first one, we can be reasonably sure that there will be no serious diplomatic engagement with Iran. We can expect that the U.S. will be making maximalist demands that no Iranian government could possibly accept.

All the evidence we have at the moment tells us that hawks will dominate Trump’s Iran policy just as much as they did last time.