How to Get a Better Deal from Iran https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/politics-current-affairs/2018/10/how-to-get-a-better-deal-from-iran/

October 16, 2018 | Michael Singh
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In the course of the past year, the Trump administration has dramatically increased economic pressure on the Islamic Republic. While these measures have indeed weakened Iran, writes Michael Singh, there is no guarantee that it will capitulate to American demands. To do that, the White House will first need to garner European and bipartisan domestic support for its Iran policy—a goal, Singh argues, that is not nearly so far-fetched as is generally assumed. Yet that alone will not suffice:

[R]ather than, or prior to, knuckling under [from sanctions], Iran [might] escalate by ramping up its nuclear activities and provoking a crisis. Taking a page from North Korea’s playbook, Tehran may calculate that the United States will feel pressure to pay simply for a return to the status quo ante. A less alarming but perhaps likelier risk is that Tehran will simply hold out, seeking merely to endure for a time rather than bargaining to relieve crushing economic pressure, as authoritarian regimes from Venezuela to Iraq have done in the past. . . .

[Even] a common U.S.-European diplomatic front will not be enough. Faced with economic pressure, Iran—as we have already seen in Iraq—may respond on the ground in areas where it supports proxies and where it perceives a comparative advantage over Western states that are weary of the Middle East. It may also question whether Trump, who has been harshly critical of past U.S. interventions in the region, would respond resolutely to an Iranian nuclear breakout. . . .

Countering Iran in the region need not, and indeed should not, be strictly a military activity. Indeed, any Iran policy has to account for the reality that Washington’s top priorities increasingly lie outside the Middle East. But the application of limited force—retaining the small U.S. troop presence in Syria or expanding allied efforts to interdict Iranian arms shipments—can amplify the effect of diplomacy. That diplomacy should aim both to resolve conflicts like Yemen’s, which Iran has exploited to expand its regional influence, and, just as critically, to deny Tehran new opportunities for meddling that arise from squabbling among U.S. allies or internal tensions within regional states.

Read more on Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/10/how-trump-can-get-a-better-deal-on-iran-sanctions-european-union-pompeo-trump-missile-program/