Maximum Pressure on Iran Will Fail: Trump’s War Has Brought American Strategy to a Dead End

84~~/100~~

Verdict High Trust High Trust – Expert Opinion/Analysis (verified factual base, contested interpretive framing)

✓ 23 checks out ✕ 4 disputed ? 10 unverified

☰ Full analysis The complete summary ⌄

The submitted text is verified as an opinion/analysis essay: 'Maximum Pressure on Iran Will Fail' by Nate Swanson, published in Foreign Affairs on 25 August 2026 (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/maximum-pressure-iran-will-fail). Its verifiable factual scaffolding is strong: the 28 February 2026 US–Israeli attack on Iran, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the 8 April 2026 ceasefire, the 13 April–18 June 2026 US naval blockade (66 days), the second blockade beginning 14 July 2026, the June 2026 MOU trading oil-export waivers for safe passage, Trump's 19 August 2026 'MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER' Truth Social post, Rubio's early-August 2026 Fox News remarks, and the January 2026 protest wave were all corroborated by primary and reputable secondary sources. Historical claims (Kissinger's 2006 Washington Post argument, the 1996 Iran Sanctions Act, 2012 oil/central-bank measures, the 2015 JCPOA and Netanyahu's 2015 congressional address, the 2025 E3 snapback, the 2023 Saudi–Iran normalisation) are accurate. Two elements warrant caution: the assertion that the war has had 'almost no impact on the United States other than driving up gas prices' is contested by reporting that at least 18 US service members had been killed since 28 February 2026; and the characterisation of Vice President Vance as favouring retrenchment sits uneasily with August 2026 reporting in which Vance leads negotiations and describes economic pressure as Washington's 'most effective tool'. The '3,000+ sanctions designations' figure could not be confirmed against an authoritative aggregate and is marked Unverified. The piece is transparently argumentative, discloses the author's government service, and uses low-emotion, analytical language, but it is advocacy for a policy position and should be read as such rather than as neutral reporting.

What checked out (23)

The United States and Israel launched coordinated military operations against Iran on 28 February 2026, with regime change stated as an objective — corroborated by AJC (20 July 2026), CFR (28 February 2026) and The Washington Post (28 February 2026).
The article's timeline of 'six months later' is internally consistent: the essay was published 25 August 2026, roughly six months after the 28 February 2026 opening of hostilities.
Iranian forces declared the Strait of Hormuz closed within days of the attacks and cross-strait traffic largely halted, trapping hundreds of vessels — Congressional Research Service R45281 (congress.gov).
A US–Iran ceasefire was agreed on 7–8 April 2026 and included Israel — Britannica '2026 Iran war' entry and CRS IN12678; the article's reference to 'the first cease-fire, in April' is accurate.
The first US naval blockade of Iranian ports began 13 April 2026 and CENTCOM announced its lifting on 18 June 2026 — an interval of 66 days, matching the article's figure — USNI News (18 June 2026), Al Jazeera (18 June 2026), NPR (18 June 2026).
A second blockade was announced by Trump and took effect on 14 July 2026, with a claimed 20% charge on cargo — Axios (13 July 2026) and Times of Israel (14 July 2026); the article's 'second blockade' is accurate.
Trump announced the 'MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY' in a Truth Social post on 19 August 2026 — CNN Politics (20 August 2026), Al Jazeera (19 August 2026), The Hill (19 August 2026), CNBC (19 August 2026).
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in early August 2026 on Fox News ('My View with Lara Trump') that the Iranian regime 'has to change' and that the way to achieve this is to make 'the price' too high — RFE/RL via GlobalSecurity (2 August 2026) and Jerusalem Post. The article's paraphrase 'must change' is substantively faithful though not verbatim.
The June 2026 memorandum of understanding between Trump and President Pezeshkian (signed 17 June 2026) provided US waivers for Iranian crude exports in exchange for Iran's 'best efforts' to ensure safe passage of commercial vessels through Hormuz — CRS R45281 and CNN (18 August 2026); this supports the article's claim about June waivers granted for a vow to keep the strait open.
A general licence authorising transactions for Iranian crude loaded on or before 20 March 2026 was issued, consistent with the claim of March 2026 oil-export waivers — CFR analysis (3 April 2026).
A large wave of protests occurred in Iran beginning 28 December 2025 and peaking in January 2026, with mass casualties and continued regime survival — Amnesty International (January and July 2026), CNN (8 January 2026), House of Commons Library CBP-10462 (8 July 2026).
The US and Israel considered, but did not launch, a special-forces ground operation to seize Iran's enriched uranium stockpile — Axios reporting relayed by CGTN (8–9 March 2026) and The New Arab (8 March 2026).
The war killed a substantial cohort of Iranian leaders and thousands of Iranians — Iran International documented 52 senior officials and commanders killed (18 July 2026); casualty trackers cite Iranian deaths of roughly 3,468 (official) to 6,000+ (US/Israeli estimates).
The war has driven up US energy prices, with crude rising past $90 per barrel from $67 pre-war and petrol reaching around $4 per gallon — CNBC (7 March 2026), Fox News (31 March 2026), Christian Science Monitor (30 April 2026).
The war is widely reported as a liability for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms — Washington Post (13 April 2026), CSMonitor (30 April 2026), ABC News (late August 2026).
Henry Kissinger argued in The Washington Post in 2006 that Iran's leaders must decide whether they represent a nation or a cause — henryakissinger.com archive of the 31 July 2006 and 24 November 2006 columns.
The Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 (originally the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act) targeted non-US investment in Iran's energy sector — statutory text hosted by OFAC.
2012 US and EU measures targeting Iran's oil revenue and central bank sharply cut Iranian crude exports, from about 2.5 million b/d in 2011 to about 1.5 million b/d in 2012 and roughly 1.1 million b/d by end-2013 — US EIA (26 April 2013) and CRS IN11108. The article's 'in half virtually overnight' is a defensible rounding of a roughly 39–56% decline, though slightly compressed on timing.
UN and EU sanctions were reimposed on Iran on 27–28 September 2025 after the E3 triggered the JCPOA snapback mechanism — Council of the EU (29 September 2025), CRS IF11583, UN press release (December 2025).
Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to normalise diplomatic relations in March 2023 in a China-brokered deal — Foreign Affairs (2023), FPRI (2023), USIP Iran Primer (15 March 2023).
Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint meeting of the US Congress on 3 March 2015 against the emerging nuclear deal, at Speaker John Boehner's invitation and without White House consultation — Washington Post (3 March 2015), NPR (3 March 2015).
US intelligence assessed that Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, and Iranian emissaries floated a 'grand bargain' approach to the Bush administration in May 2003 — Washington Post (4 December 2007), USIP Iran Primer, Bloomberg (11 December 2007).
The author's biographical claim of service on the Trump administration's Iran negotiating team in 2025 is confirmed: Nate Swanson served as NSC Director for Iran 2022–2025 and as a State Department member of the US negotiating team in spring/summer 2025 — Atlantic Council expert page and press release, E&E News/Politico (31 March 2026).

✕ Disputed claims 4 claims ⌄

DISPUTED (misleading framing, not false): 'A war that has extensively destroyed Iranian infrastructure ... has had almost no impact on the United States other than driving up gas prices.' At least 18 US service members had been killed since 28 February 2026 per ABC News (22 July 2026), with seven US soldiers killed in Iranian strikes on Kuwait and further US deaths at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base; casualty trackers list 15+ US dead. The rhetorical point about limited domestic salience is defensible, but the phrasing understates verified American military losses.
DISPUTED (contested characterisation): 'Vance ... appears to favor retrenching from Iran and the Middle East more broadly.' Vance's restraint instincts are documented (NBC News, 4 March 2026; Fox News, 27 February 2026), but by August 2026 he was leading negotiations with Iran, argued oil sanctions could be waived without Congress (The Hill, 18 June 2026), described the US as 'in the middle of the game' (The Hill, August 2026) and called economic pressure the 'most effective tool' against Iran (CNN live coverage, 20 August 2026). The article's binary Rubio-versus-Vance framing is an oversimplification of the public record.
DISPUTED (imprecise quotation): The article places 'must change' and 'the price' in quotation marks attributed to Rubio. Available reporting renders Rubio as saying the regime 'has to change' and that the aim is to 'make the price of it too high'. The substance is accurate; the quotation is not verbatim.
DISPUTED (temporal compression): '2012 ... cutting Iran's oil exports in half virtually overnight.' EIA data show a roughly 39% export decline across 2012 and a fall to about 1.1 million b/d by end-2013 — a halving over roughly 18–24 months rather than overnight.

? Unverified claims 10 claims ⌄

'More than 3,000 U.S. sanctions designations now target virtually every aspect of Iran's government and economy' — no authoritative aggregate located. The closest corroboration found is a law-firm review (Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, 1 May 2026) citing more than 1,000 Iran-related designations in roughly fifteen months since early 2025, plus Treasury's NSPM-2 campaign. The cumulative figure is plausible but Unverified.
'Trump abandoned the first blockade after 66 days' — the 66-day arithmetic (13 April to 18 June 2026 inclusive) is verified, but the causal characterisation 'abandoned' is interpretive; CENTCOM framed the lifting as implementation of the 17 June MOU. Unverified as a motive claim.
Claim that Iranian negotiators in the first half of 2025 were focused less on sanctions relief than on securing non-aggression pledges from the US and Israel — a first-person recollection from closed negotiations; no independent corroborating record located. Unverified (author has credible standing, but the claim is untestable from open sources).
Claim that Washington and Israel judged ground operations 'highly risky and unlikely to affect the regime's decision-making' — the existence of the deliberations is verified via Axios-sourced reporting, but this specific internal assessment rationale is Unverified.
Claim that Tehran has concluded 'time is on its side' and can outlast US economic pressure — an analytic inference about Iranian intent, not an externally verifiable fact. Unverified by design.
Claim that Trump 'has threatened to escalate, only to back down when energy prices spike' at multiple points — directionally consistent with CNN's 20 August 2026 analysis questioning whether Trump will 'stay the course', but no source located that establishes the specific causal linkage to price spikes. Unverified.
Claim that 'no future administration will ever be able to revert to the traditional U.S. playbook' — a forward-looking prediction, inherently unverifiable.
Claim that the war has 'exacted a heavy toll on U.S. munitions' — plausible and widely discussed, but no primary inventory data located within this research window. Unverified.
Claim that Khomeini agreed to end the Iran–Iraq war in 1988 specifically because he feared Reagan might formally align with Saddam Hussein — the 1988 war termination and US–Iran naval clashes are historically established, but this precise motive attribution is a contested historiographical reading. Unverified as stated.
Claim that Iran's drone and missile capabilities 'remain intact enough' to sustain interdiction — partially supported by reporting of 65 attacks on commercial vessels and 17 mariners killed since 28 February 2026 (CNBC, 18 August 2026), but the capability assessment itself is analytic. Unverified in full.

⌕ Sources & how we checked Search journal, source grades, confidence ⌄

Confidence

High (0.86) — Confidence is high because the article's provenance was positively identified (Foreign Affairs, 25 August 2026, Nate Swanson) and because its operational claims were corroborated by an unusually dense primary record — three CRS products, Council of the EU and UN documents, OFAC statutory text and Treasury releases, EIA data, and two UK parliamentary briefings — reinforced by independent reporting from outlets spanning the editorial spectrum (Washington Post, NPR, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, Al Jazeera, USNI News, Axios, ABC News). The most falsifiable specific figure, the 66-day first blockade, reconciled exactly against the 13 April and 18 June 2026 endpoints, which materially raises confidence in the author's factual care. Confidence is held below 0.95 for five reasons: several paywalled sources could only be verified through excerpts; the author's insider claims about closed negotiations are structurally unverifiable; the 3,000-designations figure resisted confirmation; the Vance characterisation depends on an evolving public record that shifted between June and August 2026; and the conflict is active, with the June MOU lapsed and a new pressure campaign only days old at publication, so this assessment is explicitly time-stamped to 30 August 2026 and should be refreshed before reuse.

Search journal

Iran United States news today

https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/world/live-news/iran-war-trump

Trump war Iran February 2026 launched strikes regime change

Strait of Hormuz closed Iran 2026 shipping

Trump blockade Iranian ports 66 days

Iran US ceasefire April 2026

Iran protests January 2026 nationwide

Trump lifted naval blockade Iran May 29 2026 duration days

Marco Rubio Fox News August 2026 Iran regime must change price

JD Vance Iran policy withdrawal Middle East 2026

Vance restraint Iran withdraw disengage Middle East comments 2026

Trump oil export waivers Iran March 2026 June 2026 Strait of Hormuz open

Trump oil export waiver March 2026 sanctions waiver no concessions

Trump "MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION" Iran Truth Social

Kissinger 2006 Washington Post Iran nation or a cause

Nate Swanson Foreign Affairs Iran negotiating team State Department

"Maximum Pressure on Iran Will Fail" Foreign Affairs Swanson August 2026

US Israel considered ground operation Iran seize nuclear material enriched uranium 2026

US sanctions designations Iran number 3000 OFAC

more than 3,000 Iran sanctions designations maximum pressure Treasury count

snapback UN sanctions Iran September 2025 Europe E3

2012 Iran oil exports cut in half sanctions central bank NDAA

Iran war impact midterm elections 2026 polling gas prices

US troops killed Iran war 2026 American casualties bases attacked

Iran war 2026 death toll commanders killed IRGC leadership civilians

CENTCOM removed naval blockade Iran 18 June 2026

Iran Saudi Arabia normalization March 2023 Beijing agreement

Netanyahu 2015 speech Congress invited Boehner against Iran nuclear deal

Iran halted nuclear weapons program 2003 NIE grand bargain fax Bush administration

Iran Sanctions Act 1996 D'Amato foreign investment energy sector

Article metrics

Emotion 16% · Reading grade 12.6 · 2416 words

≡ The article we checked Full text as retrieved ⌄

For 47 years, the Islamic Republic has bedeviled U.S. presidents. The 1979 Iran hostage crisis helped doom Jimmy Carter’s reelection bid. The Iran-contra scandal in the mid-1980s badly tarnished Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy record. And Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), led to an unprecedented situation in which the U.S. Congress invited a foreign leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to Washington to argue against it.

In February, when he launched his war against [Iran]( President Donald Trump declared that he intended to break this embarrassing pattern once and for all. By crushing Iran militarily and effecting regime change, he boasted that whereas other presidents had only talked about the Iranian threat, he was taking decisive action to end it. But six months later, Trump has become yet another U.S. president facing a dangerous humiliation related to Iran; the fallout from his excursion threatens his party’s prospects in the midterm elections. Now, perhaps in desperation, Trump is attempting to squeeze Tehran with an economic noose. But as it is constructed, this economic-pressure operation poses a greater threat to U.S. credibility than it does to Iran’s economy.

In truth, the multifaceted war [Trump]( has launched is not a break with precedent but the apotheosis of the same flawed strategy that has undergirded U.S. policy toward Iran from the Islamic Republic’s inception, in 1979. Iran’s theocratic regime has continually flummoxed U.S. administrations in part because it contains profound contradictions. It is simultaneously ideological and transactional. Tehran continues to adhere to the core features of its revolutionary ideology, including its anti-American and anti-Israeli foreign policy, but can also act with pragmatism when circumstances demand it. Iran accepted meaningful limits on its nuclear program in 2015, for instance, and reversed decades of hostility toward Saudi Arabia by normalizing ties in 2023. Iran’s relationship to the U.S. national interest is confusing, too. The regime does pose a direct threat to the United States because of its illicit nuclear program. And long before the current war began, the terrorism and proxy militias Iran funded were menacing U.S. citizens and shipping through the Red Sea. Yet for most Americans, Iran remains a distant afterthought. A war that has extensively destroyed Iranian infrastructure, distorted the country’s economy, and killed an entire echelon of leaders, as well as thousands of soldiers and civilians, has had almost no impact on the United States other than driving up gas prices.

To address these dualities, Washington has often stripped nuance from policymaking and oriented U.S. strategy around pressure as the primary tool to contain Iran and compel it to behave differently. This pressure strategy has rested on two pillars: establishing a credible military threat and engaging in economic coercion. But instead of resolving the perplexing paradoxes posed by the Islamic Republic, this approach only deepened them—especially as Trump has sought to intensify the pressure strategy. A wave of domestic protests in January showed that Iran is internally combustible, but the war proved that the Islamic Republic is resilient and will not capitulate. Airstrikes have weakened the regime militarily but strengthened its standing internally. Iran acknowledges that it needs sanctions relief, but it is also learning that time is on its side and that, by controlling the Strait of Hormuz, it can impose reciprocal consequences for pressure.

The irony of Trump’s failed [war on Iran]( his stop-start negotiations to try to end it—is that it has so severely weakened Washington’s ability to exert pressure on Tehran that no future administration will ever be able to revert to the traditional U.S. playbook. But that could also be the only upside of a war that has already exacted a heavy toll on U.S. munitions and the global economy. The war could—and should—force a broader reckoning with 47 years of failed strategy and change Washington’s approach for good.

### OUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY

In 2006, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in _The_ _Washington Post_ that Iran’s leaders must “decide whether they are representing a nation or a cause.” He argued that Iran must choose between prioritizing stability and the well-being of its people—by engaging rationally with other states—or continuing to be driven by the revolutionary and ideological ambitions that defined the 1979 Iranian Revolution. This idea reflected U.S. policy toward Iran over the better part of 50 years. Washington wants Iran to abandon its revolutionary origins and aimed U.S. policy toward compelling that outcome. It has continually attempted to contain Iran’s influence and get Tehran to behave rationally using a mix of a few carrots and a lot of sticks; the biggest stick was the threat of a U.S. invasion.

Tehran itself has not seen a need to make such a concrete choice. The Islamic Republic has alternately—or simultaneously—behaved like a cause and a rational nation. For all its public bravado, the Iranian regime long sought to avoid direct conflict with the [United States]( The Islamic Republic’s first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, famously asserted that Tehran was not afraid of the American military, but both he and his successor, Ali Khamenei, governed as if they were. In 1988, for instance, Khomeini finally agreed to end his war with Iraq after the United States began engaging Iranian naval ships in direct skirmishes, leading him to fear that Reagan might formally align with Saddam Hussein’s regime. Likewise, after the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Iran—fearing that it might be next—sought various de-escalation options with George W. Bush’s administration, including halting its nuclear weapons program and sending emissaries to the State Department and the White House to explore détente.

> Washington, in fact, has a limited ability to vanquish Iran militarily.

When I served on the Trump administration’s Iran negotiating team in the first half of 2025, I was surprised to find that Iranian negotiators were focused less on gaining sanctions relief than on securing nonaggression pledges from the United States and Israel. An aversion to outright war with the United States is part of the reason Iran developed its network of proxy militias. It knew it could not win a direct conflict and so it pursued advantages elsewhere.

But this year’s war has taught the regime three new lessons. It has learned that it can survive massive U.S. and Israeli airstrikes that annihilate its leaders and inflict significant damage to its military and civilian infrastructure. Despite all that, its drone and missile capabilities remain intact enough to allow it to retaliate and stop maritime traffic through the [Strait of Hormuz]( Tehran has also discovered that the United States has no appetite for sending ground troops into its territory. Early in this year’s war, the United States and Israel considered launching ground operations to extract nuclear material but never initiated them, judging them to be highly risky and unlikely to affect the regime’s decision-making. This year’s war showed that regime change cannot be accomplished in Iran without a ground invasion, but even the most hawkish U.S. policymakers have not publicly recommended one—showing Tehran that Washington, in fact, has a limited ability to vanquish it militarily.

Finally, Iran gambled that it could outlast the United States in a conflict of attrition, and this bet has so far proved wise. The Iranian regime is willing to subject its own people to more suffering and economic pain than the U.S. public is willing to bear, especially since Americans broadly view the war as optional and, increasingly, as a quagmire. At multiple points, Trump has threatened to escalate, only to back down when energy prices spike. The threat of military force is now no longer as valuable as it was before the war—which is why Trump’s repeated military threats since the first cease-fire, in April, have not substantially changed Tehran’s actions.

### **ONE-WAY RATCHET**

The second historic bedrock of the United States’ pressure strategy has been economic coercion. Some sanctions, such as those designed to restrict Tehran’s ability to sell oil, have had a profound impact on Iran’s economy. But they have mostly failed to effect the policy changes they were designed to drive. Following the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran—and Khomeini’s embrace of the takeover—Carter imposed a series of punitive actions, including an embargo on U.S. investment and trade with Iran. That move ended the two countries’ previously deep trade and defense partnership, but it did little to curtail Iran’s exports to the rest of the world. In 1996, Congress expanded the economic-pressure approach with the Iran Sanctions Act, which limited even non-Americans’ ability to invest in Iran’s energy sector. In 2012, Congress, as well as the European Union, further targeted Iran’s oil revenue and its central bank, cutting Iran’s oil exports in half virtually overnight. Those provisions were relaxed under the JCPOA, then reimposed in 2018 by the United States after Trump withdrew from the agreement and by Europe in 2025 when a so-called snapback clause triggered.

The first Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy was initially advertised as a mechanism to secure a better nuclear deal. Once that failed to materialize, sanctioning Iran became an end in itself. More than 3,000 U.S. sanctions designations now target virtually every aspect of Iran’s government and economy. These sanctions are intentionally complex and layered with overlapping authorities, making them difficult to lift. But many are also symbolic. Over time, economic pressure—sanctions in particular—became an easy default policy for the U.S. government, even if many moves had no tangible impact, because they appeared to show Washington was taking action and Americans rarely bore any direct cost.

In the current war, Trump has cranked up economic pressure to its zenith by blockading Iranian ports. The war, however, finally imposed consequences on the American public when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and targeted Gulf energy infrastructure, wreaking havoc on global energy shipments. Iran’s economy was already under tremendous strain before the war, and the blockade has exacerbated that strain. But Trump abandoned the first blockade after 66 days. He has recently imposed a second blockade and a broader pressure campaign aimed at curtailing Iran’s remaining trade that he advertises on social media as the “MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY.” There is no doubt this campaign will hurt Iran and its economy. But it will almost certainly fail to force Tehran’s surrender. Rather than succumb to pressure, recent history suggests that Iran will use its missile and drone program to exact steep economic costs on the global economy—either in the Strait of Hormuz or against Gulf countries—to again shift Trump’s risk calculus. The Islamic Republic believes it can outlast the United States’ will to exert economic pressure, just as it can survive U.S. military pressure.

The failed war and blockades, as well as Trump’s approach to negotiations this year, will permanently alter the utility of economic pressure. Whereas sanctions relief was once the reward the United States could offer Iran for constraining its nuclear ambitions, Trump issued oil-export waivers in March without any Iranian concessions and again in June in return for a vow merely to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

### TEAR UP THE PLAYBOOK

No matter how this war ends, the United States will not be able to return to the strategy that governed its relations with Iran for 47 years. Trump’s potential Republican successors, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, differ strikingly in their views of what to do next. In recent public comments, Rubio has suggested a preference for expanding a pressure strategy, telling Fox News in early August that the Iranian regime “must change” fundamentally and arguing that the United States should further ratchet up “the price” of intransigence A pressure strategy, however, was only sustainable, if not efficacious, insofar as it did not demand much from the American people. And with its newfound control of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has far more ability to make the United States and its key Middle Eastern allies pay for applying pressure. Vance, by contrast, appears to favor retrenching from Iran and the Middle East more broadly—an approach that would loosely resemble Trump’s and President Joe Biden’s approach to Afghanistan, which cut the United States’ losses entirely. But Iran is a harder country to walk away from. Its nuclear program and strategic location give it direct leverage over the United States and the global economy in a way Afghanistan never did.

It is too early to know what path a Democratic administration would take, and there are no easy answers for how to approach Iran. There will be justified calls for diplomacy to take a more prominent role in U.S. policy. Like pressure, however, diplomacy cannot serve as an end in itself. A new approach must recognize the Islamic Republic’s persistent dualities, as well as the United States’ changing role in the Middle East. Over 20 years, a substantial U.S. presence in the region has not brought stability, and increasing that presence has not yielded better results. At the same time, the domestic grievances that led to the massive wave of January protests in Iran still exist. The United States might consider stepping back, forcing Iran’s leadership to focus more on governing and less on surviving a war. Instead of taking unilateral action, Washington should first seek the input and cooperation of allied capitals. And rather than try endlessly to build more leverage, it should instead better use what it has already accumulated.

The best thing Washington can do at this point is to stop acting without thinking. And U.S. policymakers need to dwell more on lessons from the past. Military and economic pressure did occasionally shape Iranian decision-making. Pressure helped push Iran to temporarily pause its nuclear program during George W. Bush’s administration and, later, to accept the JCPOA. But pressure did not topple the Islamic Republic, make the United States safer, or improve the lives of ordinary Iranians; in fact, the U.S. pressure strategy likely deepened Iranian civilians’ hardship.

Ultimately, what Washington wants most is for Iran to interact productively with its neighbors, abandon an illicit nuclear program, and promote the well-being of its people. But like it or not, the Islamic Republic gets a say in what happens next in Iran. Forty-seven years of prioritizing pressure culminated in a costly war that revealed the limits of what that approach can accomplish. It would be a silver lining if the Iran war’s failure forced a reckoning in Washington about the United States’ preconceived notions about Iran and the well-worn playbook that has led to this morass.

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Maximum Pressure on Iran Will Fail: Trump’s War Has Brought American Strategy to a Dead End

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