Beware of Premature Talks with Iran

With Iran reeling from geopolitical setbacks, President Trump will soon face a decision: whether to increase the pressure on Tehran to weaken the regime further or to leverage that weakness to try and negotiate a deal on nuclear and other issues.

Foreign policy experts are already weighing in with their preferred courses of action. Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus Richard Haass, for instance, has proposed that Trump “pursue the ambitious objective of reshaping Iran’s national security policy through diplomacy—but diplomacy carried out against a backdrop of the ability and willingness to use military force if Tehran refused to adequately address U.S. and Western concerns.”

That sounds reasonable, at least on the surface. However, the history of the last dozen years suggests that the new president should not rush to invite Tehran to negotiate in hopes of cutting a deal that serves America’s interests.

The sapping of Iran’s strength since fall 2023 has been nothing short of astonishing. When Hamas (its terrorist client) crossed Israel’s border with Gaza and slaughtered 1,200 men, women, and children, and when Hezbollah (another terrorist client) immediately launched a relentless barrage of rockets from Lebanon, Tehran seemed increasingly bullish about its goal of destroying the Jewish state.

But fifteen months later, Israel has destroyed Hamas’ capacity to launch another significant attack while decapitating Hezbollah’s leadership, thinning its ranks of fighters, and destroying as much as 80 percent of its rocket arsenal.

Distracted by the travails of Hamas and Hezbollah and weakened by direct exchanges of missiles with Jerusalem that showcased Israel’s strength and Iran’s weakness, Tehran could not prevent the toppling of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, its most important regional ally.

Now, Iran has largely withdrawn its forces from Syria—where the rebels who toppled al-Assad have no particular fondness for the Islamic Republic—leaving Tehran without its “land bridge” to arm Hezbollah.

Nevertheless, Iran remains a serious threat not only to America’s regional allies and interests but also to global stability, thus putting Tehran high on the foreign policy agenda for the incoming Trump team.

With Iran now enriching more uranium near weapons-grade purity, French President Emmanuel Macron says the Iranian nuclear program may be near the “point of no return,” leaving the West with less time and fewer options to prevent the world-shaking reality of an Iran with nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthis (another Iranian terrorist client) are firing missiles at Israel while disrupting global shipping in regional waterways—adding billions of dollars in costs for international shippers, raising prices for consumer goods, prompting at least twenty-nine major global shipping companies to avoid the Suez Canal and sail around Africa, and affecting as many as eighty-five countries.

So, how should Trump approach a weakened but still dangerous Iran and the terrorist proxies in its “axis of resistance?”

In early 2013, President Obama faced a similar dilemma. Years of sanctions and the decision of SWIFT, the global financial messaging service, to stop serving Iran’s banks left Iran’s economy in free fall. Its gross domestic product shrunk by nearly six percent. Inflation soared to 45 percent, unemployment was at 10 percent, and by May 2013, oil exports fell to 700,000 barrels per day (down from 2.2 million at the end of 2011).

With Iran economically staggered and its odious regime in potentially dire straits, Obama took his foot off the gas and turned his focus to negotiating an agreement to restrict Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Both before it was inked and afterward, Obama expressed hope that the agreement—the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and six world powers—would reduce tensions between Washington and Tehran and nurture cooperation on other regional issues.

The results? A loophole-riddled deal that lacked the means to prevent Tehran from advancing its nuclear program covertly and which would gradually expire over the course of twenty or so years; A strengthened Iranian economy that stabilized the regime; And, thanks to sanctions relief, a regime with many billions of extra dollars to expand its military, fund its terrorist network, and pursue its hegemonic ambitions.

What should Trump, who withdrew the United States from the JCPOA in 2018, do now?

First and foremost, he should not repeat Obama’s mistake of savoring a deal with Tehran so badly that he cuts a flawed one.

For now, he should reimpose his “maximum pressure” campaign of financial restrictions on Iran (as he’s promised), make clear that he’ll take all necessary military and other steps to prevent a nuclear Iran (as he’s hinted), rally like-minded nations behind more aggressive action against the Houthis to protect global shipping, and hold Tehran responsible for the destructive behavior of its Houthi clients.

The time for diplomacy is not yet at hand.

Lawrence J. Haas is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and the author of, among other books, Harry and Arthur: Truman, Vandenberg, and the Partnership That Created the Free World.

Image: Nicole Glass Photography / Shutterstock.com.