No matter who wins the presidential election next month, US policy towards Iran seems likely to remain extremely hostile and confrontational. Both campaigns seem determined to out-hawk each other. The Iran policy debate in Washington, such as it is, is focused entirely on the same bankrupt coercive measures of sanctions, threats, and military action that are guaranteed to make things worse. There is no serious discussion of reducing tensions or resuming negotiations in the new year. The persistence of this failed hawkish consensus is dangerous for the US, Iran, and the wider region, and it needs to end.
The failed bipartisan hawkish consensus on Iran closes off paths for resolving disagreements peacefully, and it paves the way for unnecessary wars. The consensus embraces escalation as the solution to each new crisis, and it writes off diplomacy as naïve and useless. It is the same kind of bankrupt, outdated thinking that has dominated US foreign policy in the region for at least the last thirty years, and it is why US Iran policy remains so destructive and dangerous. We are desperately in need of some fresh and different policy ideas.
Unfortunately, both presidential candidates are content to keep the US on a collision course with Iran for the time being, and that means that the US will be stuck with the same rotten foreign policy in the Middle East for at least another four years. Donald Trump recently expressed support for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. During the vice-presidential debate, Sen. Vance said that he would support whatever Israel wanted to do. On the Democratic side, Vice President Harris bizarrely claimed that Iran is America’s “greatest adversary” in response to a question in her interview with 60 Minutes. Harris asserted that Iran was an “obvious” candidate for being the greatest adversary because its government “has American blood on its hands.”
Harris’ answer that Iran is the greatest adversary of the United States is absurd on its face. Iran is not and has never been that much of a threat to US interests, and it has no ability to threaten the United States directly. Hawks have been exaggerating the power and ambitions of the Iranian government for decades to justify incessant US meddling in the region, but this is nothing but propaganda. Maybe the vice president said this to pander to hardliners, or maybe she believes it to be true, but either way it suggests that Iran policy in a Harris administration will be every bit as bad as Biden’s and possibly even worse.
The US is already squandering an opportunity to reopen diplomatic talks with Iran. The Iranian government has signaled its willingness to negotiate a new nonproliferation agreement following the election of their new reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Pezeshkian campaigned and won on a platform of diplomatic engagement and pursuing sanctions relief, and his agenda has received a green light from Iran’s Supreme Leader. The problem is that Pezeshkian has no credible negotiating partner in Washington or in any other Western capital. If the US doesn’t take advantage of this opening to find a compromise, it may not get another chance for many years.
It is clear that US Iran policy needs a complete overhaul. Reviving nuclear negotiations would be a good beginning for establishing better US-Iranian relations, but if there is going to be real improvement in the relationship that lasts US diplomacy with Iran cannot be limited to the nuclear issue. A new nonproliferation agreement could clear the way for closer trade and diplomatic ties, and the US and Iran should build on that foundation to create a constructive bilateral relationship. The absence of normal diplomatic relations between our countries for forty-five years has been detrimental to both. It is past time to remedy the situation.
The US has greatly improved relations with other states that it fought in major wars with much higher American casualties. The United States normalized relations with the same Vietnamese government that it had fought bitterly a quarter of a century earlier. There is no compelling reason why past US-Iranian enmity must endure after almost half a century. If the Iranian government has American blood on its hands, the US government is responsible for spilling even more Iranian blood between its support for Iraq’s invasion of Iran, shooting down Iran Air flight 655, the Tanker War, and decades of crippling sanctions. Instead of dwelling on the injuries that the US and Iran have done to each other, US policymakers would be wise to work on burying the proverbial hatchet and establishing normal ties.
Daniel Larison is a columnist for Responsible Statecraft. He is contributing editor at Antiwar.com and former senior editor at The American Conservative magazine. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. Follow him on Twitter @DanielLarison and at his blog, Eunomia, here.
