U.S. Foreign Policy Towards the Islamic Republic: From Change, Containment, and Deterrence to Peaceful Transition

Rex Tillerson's remarks at the U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee on June 14, 2017, indicate that the Trump administration has arrived at a clear policy towards the Islamic Republic and the decisions based on it after months of ambiguity and indecision. Tillerson described this policy as assisting in a 'peaceful transition' from the existing government. Essentially, why this policy? How does it differ from the 'regime change' policy during the Bush era or the containment and deterrence policy during Obama? Is this policy not in conflict with Trump's statements during the election campaigns? Is this policy practical and feasible? And ultimately, does this policy not conflict with the United States' international commitments such as the JCPOA? Why transition? The only government from which Trump administration officials speak of transition is the Islamic Republic. This does not mean that the United States does not see hostile and adversarial governments in the world. North Korea, Russia, and China have each become troublesome states for the United States in East Asia, Eastern Europe, cyberattacks, and nuclear and missile threats, but the United States does not speak of changing or transitioning from their governments. The reason for the focus on the Islamic Republic is threefold: 1. The promotion of Shia Islamism in the region and the world, which threatens both Western governments and societies with terrorist operations and fuels the growth of Sunni Islamism (due to sectarianism); North Korea does not engage in such activities beyond its borders. China and Russia have also moved past the era of expanding totalitarian ideologies; 2. Its missile and nuclear program, the former of which continues vigorously and its long-range type (along with threats to destroy Israel) poses a threat to Europe and the U.S., while the latter is contingent on a weak and time-limited agreement; thus, the threats from the Islamic Republic are on par with North Korea's threats to Japan, South Korea, and American cities; and 3. The expansion of military influence in the Middle East from Yemen and Iraq to Syria and Lebanon in Asia, extending to North African countries and destabilizing Gulf States and Afghanistan. This influence and destabilization have worried both Israel and Arab countries in the region to the extent that they cooperate to counter the Islamic Republic. The ambitions and expansionist tendencies of China (in the South China Sea) and Russia (in Ukraine) have not reached this level. Change or transition? 'Regime change' in U.S. foreign policy literature, given its application in U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two decades, usually evokes military attack, although this term does not necessarily imply military action. In this regard, Tillerson's term 'peaceful transition' seems to have been chosen carefully. From Tillerson's remarks and those of Defense Department officials in the Trump administration, it appears that they do not have military action against the Islamic Republic in mind, although they welcome regime change in Tehran. However, similar to the Obama administration, they will implicitly not recognize the Islamic Republic (through numerous secret correspondences, pursuing a balance of power between Sunni Arabs and the Shia government in Iran, allowing the Islamic Republic to hold presidential elections in various U.S. cities, and giving $1.7 billion of Iranian people's assets to the regime in cash). The Obama administration's policy was to reconcile with the Islamic Republic, which led to the nuclear agreement. However, the Trump administration has taken a completely different path. The aspects of Tillerson's 'peaceful transition' policy have a clear side and an ambiguous side: 1. Sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard, which directs and executes both the missile program and military interventions in the Middle East, and U.S. officials have problems with both; sanctioning the Guard and its affiliated companies as a non-violent method aligns perfectly with the peaceful transition policy. Additionally, sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard will gradually create conditions for the Iranian people to transition from the religious government over the long term; these sanctions will be effective as they will deter foreign investors from investing in Iran and deprive the Guard's empire companies of access to global financial and industrial markets or raise the cost of doing so; and 2. Supporting political forces within the country that seek regime change. This aspect is still untested and in its early stages. It is unclear which part of the political forces inside the country seeks a peaceful transition for the peaceful policymaker to rely on. If former reformists are meant, they are either in isolation and prison or recovering after imprisonment (a small minority) and do not raise their voices, or they have abandoned reformist agendas and are acting as moderates (read: supporters of Khamenei's policies without identifying with the security and Guard forces loyal to Khamenei). Neither of these two groups believes in transitioning from the regime. Mr. Tillerson says that these forces believing in a peaceful transition exist in Iran, and he is right, but they are individuals without organization and without strategy and specific plans. U.S. support for them will ultimately be limited to some empowerment, information dissemination, and condemning restrictions and human rights violations. Countering government propaganda and censorship through reporting on crackdowns is one of these areas. Focus on Islamism in Trump's foreign policy. Donald Trump's statements during the campaigns regarding foreign policy, as a critic of the 'regime change' policy and the JCPOA, even turned some Iranian officials into his supporters. Khamenei explicitly praised his candid and critical statements about American society or the costliness of foreign interventions. The Iranian propaganda apparatus did not attack Trump for this reason, while it labeled Hillary Clinton as a neocon and warmonger, similar to Russia and parts of the European left. They, of course, ignored Trump's and his team's anti-Islamist views. These views are now determining U.S. foreign policy, especially towards Iran. The JCPOA and the peaceful policymaker. The U.S. President explicitly spoke during his inauguration ceremony about his administration's abstention from military intervention to change regimes opposed to the U.S. However, this policy does not contradict sanctions against those governments and support for opposing groups. Both the extension of D'Amato sanctions and new Senate sanctions against the Revolutionary Guard (passed on June 15, 2017, with 98 votes) do not conflict with the JCPOA text, which only lifts sanctions related to the nuclear program. In fact, Ali Khamenei explicitly criticized aspects of the JCPOA that open the way for other sanctions after this agreement: 'In this matter [the JCPOA], in some cases, due to reliance on the words of the opposite side, we overlooked some issues or did not put in the necessary effort, resulting in gaps that the enemy is currently exploiting.' Thus, the JCPOA neither prevents new sanctions nor the 'peaceful transition' policy, as the Islamic Republic has insisted from the beginning that the 5+1 agreement and Iran remain solely within the scope of the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. Rouhani's proposals for JCPOA 2 and 3, which aimed to resolve other issues between Iran and the United States, were stifled in their infancy.