U.S. Relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran: Lessons from a Volatile Past

This overview starts with some broad points relevant to understanding the history of the bilateral relationship. It then lists some of the key obstacles to any possible deals or improvement in ties.  This is followed by a brief catalogue of measures that have worked in the past and would likely be necessary for a diplomatic coming-to-terms under Trump 2.0—if (and it’s a big “if”) that is in fact what the current administration is seeking. Space limitations rule out incorporating examples to support all of the points below. Please note that the focus here is on the U.S. side, not the Iranian.

Broad considerations

U.S. relations toward Iran since the 1979 revolution encompass almost half a century and eight presidential administrations. A few overarching points to set out at the beginning:

• Despite the bitterness of the relationship, every U.S. president from Jimmy Carter on, Democrat and Republican, has tried to come to terms with the Islamic Republic in some fashion, even during the darkest days of the relationship. (The same is true for Iran’s rulers, including both Supreme Leaders – Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei.)  
• Iran occupies a grey area as a security threat. It is too big for the United States or its local allies to ignore and too large to be able to overwhelm militarily. But it is not a sufficiently dangerous direct threat to American interests (on a par with the Soviet Union or China during the Cold War, for instance) to convince skeptics to set aside moral or political qualms and engage with the Islamic Republic. 
• The mix of history, politics, culture, and psychology embedded in the relationship resists pat solutions. No one should come to the table expecting it will be possible to wrap up an agreement in a few months, much less days, as President Trump has stated he could.
• Some of these factors may appear nebulous but as Hussein Banai, John Tirman, and I argue in our book Republics of Myth, the entire relationship tends to defy standard analytical frameworks—realist theories of international relations, for instance—and is awash with intangibles that have made Iran a policy thicket for almost half a century.  

Traditional obstacles

Numerous factors have created obstacles to developing closer ties or even achieving one-time deals with Iran. Those listed below may continue to pose problems in future.

• Clashing national narratives 
  • These are myths and beliefs nations have created about themselves and others [for a full explication, see Republics of Myth (2022) by Banai, Byrne, and Tirman]America’s narrative features a sense of exceptionalism and a calling to tame, civilize, and secure the bounties of the wilderness, an idea that traces back to the Puritans, but took full form on the American frontier, and once that territory was subjugated the focus shifted overseas, including to the Middle East.Put simply, Iran’s narrative reflects two main themes: a long history of victimization by outside forces epitomized by the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (680 AD); and the story of Persia’s luminous “Aryan” past exemplified mainly by Cyrus the Great.
  • The existence of these narratives has arguably affected American thinking about Iran since at least Franklin Roosevelt. Contemporaneous records of FDR’s well-intentioned (but inherently paternalistic) notions and the views of diplomats in-country reflect an ingrained American sense of mission to bring Western liberal values to the Persian people. As historian Bruce Kuniholm put it: “altruism … nicely coincided with self-interest” in U.S. policy.

• Ideological rigidity, emotionalism, and moralizing
  • With significant justification, Americans are still outraged over the taking of American diplomats hostage in Tehran in 1979. It was the start of a long chain of Iranian government conduct abroad and at home that included shocking battlefield tactics in the 1980s, endorsement if not direct backing of terrorist incidents, and massive human rights abuses at home.Focusing here just on the United States, this has tended to produce unhelpful rhetoric; stratagems that are often based on presumptions and ultimately detrimental to good policymaking; and at times a flat refusal to engage on putatively moral grounds. Such ideological and emotional responses have led to a significant number of missed opportunities for better relations (which, to restate, has been a goal of every U.S. administration since 1979). Examples include failing to reciprocate then-Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s attempts starting in the mid-1980s to clear up the Lebanon hostage crisis and promote Western diplomatic ties; and the Bush 43 administration’s decision to cut off operational channels to Iranians regarding Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11, contrary to recommendations by Ambassadors Ryan Crocker and Zalmay Khalilzad. 
  • The question is whether these feelings, while understandable, risk putting widely shared policy objectives out of reach, such as preventing Iran from going nuclear.

• Mutual ignorance
  • Examples in this category abound and long predate the revolution: from wildly off-target assessments of the Shah’s longevity in the late 1970s; to an unawareness in the White House, as late as 1978, of what an “Ayatollah” was; to underestimations of Iranian competency or the durability of the regime; to a failure to grasp fundamental political dynamics and redlines in Iran. As the State Department’s Henry Precht once lamented: “I don’t think there is another country in the world that we’ve gotten so wrong, so consistently for so long a time as Iran.” 

• Domestic politics
  • Long underappreciated as a disruptor of the most carefully-crafted foreign policies, domestic political factors have repeatedly sabotaged both U.S. and Iranian attempts at rapprochement. Very often the legislative branch in each country has been the epicenter of such activity. The fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is a case in point.

What has worked before?

The following are some of the factors that have proven effective—and sometimes essential—for the United States in the past (fully acknowledging the very limited number of bilateral successes worthy of the name).

• Political leadership and commitment
  • This starts at the very top: the president must personally be willing to think beyond standard paradigms, make difficult compromises, and be ready to put their credibility on the line. Barack Obama embodied the clearest example of this willingness, which paved the way for the JCPOA. Another example, admittedly an unlikely one, was Ronald Reagan’s arms-for-hostages gambit of the 1980s. Ultimately a disaster because of how it was conceived and mishandled, the fact is that it showed a determined president willing to take risks could foster surprising (potential) breakthroughs in the bilateral relationship. 
  • But committed leadership is also essential at the Cabinet and sub-Cabinet levels. John Kerry and Ernest Moniz devoted hundreds of hours of their own time and committed vast departmental resources to getting to “yes” with Iran. The roles of talented professionals like William Burns, Wendy Sherman, and many others were also necessary to adoption of the JCPOA.

• Policy flexibility andadaptability
  • George Bush Sr. deserves credit for signaling in his 1989 inaugural address (“goodwill begets goodwill”) a readiness to engage with then-President Rafsanjani despite the recent disaster of Iran-Contra. Unfortunately, a number of factors, including domestic politics, induced Bush not to reciprocate Rafsanjani’s efforts.
  • Bill Clinton also showed an ability to adapt. After a first term characterized by attempts to contain the Islamic Republic, the 1997 surprise election of Mohammad Khatami produced a dramatic about-face in his attitude and U.S. policy. Even Israel, AIPAC, and much of the congressional GOP quietly acknowledged the possibility of a change in the relationship—at least briefly.

• Clear goals 
  • Striking a deal does not require broad philosophical or policy agreement, mutual sympathy, or even (per William Burns) trust.  What is needed, at least at the start, is merely a set of objectives which each side has confidence the other can and will deliver.  

• Reliable partnerships
  • U.S.-Iran relations do not play out in a vacuum. Various actors, including neighbors and big powers, also have interests at stake and are capable of both enabling and undermining deals that may be in the works. The JCPOA could not have been consummated without the good offices of Oman, a trusted intermediary on both sides. Likewise, the Americans and EU-3 would almost certainly have failed had it not been for unusually solid support from Russia and China, based on the powerful common interest in curbing Iran’s nuclear program.

• Strategic and political patience
  • It required more than two years of negotiations to pull the JCPOA together, and that followed a full presidential term spent preparing the ground by the Obama administration. President Clinton also devoted his entire second term to attempting a breakthrough with President Khatami, but it was not enough. American and Iranian timetables do not match, a consequence of their differing political, electoral, and even cultural dynamics. U.S. officials must recognize that two-year and four-year election cycles create insuperable hurdles for Iranian leaders who need to ensure consensus at the top for the sake of both policy success and their personal political standing. 

• Direct channels of communication
  • Face-to-face meetings (initially in secret) were a sine qua non of the JCPOA process (along with the eventual presence of English-speaking counterparts familiar with American mindsets and eager for success). More generally, it is widely recognized that the absence of diplomatic relations has shackled attempts at communication, information gathering, and deal-making. Well-intended initiatives like the Iran Watcher program, launched under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Under Secretary Nicholas Burns, were not sufficient by themselves. In this connection, it is worth recalling the multi-tiered benefits for the United States of opening an embassy in Beijing in 1979.

• External pressure
  • Even if diplomacy is the first priority, it must be acknowledged that the Islamic Republic does respond to outside pressure. Sanctions, especially multilateral ones, are justifiably a core concern for the regime, even though so far it has withstood their impact with greater resilience than many observers predicted. Moreover, the threat of military action is a constant worry to many who fully recall U.S.-led forces twice overwhelming Iraq’s military in a matter of weeks, something Iran’s military could not do in eight years. At a minimum, it is likely that these threats of outside pressure will form an important part of U.S. strategy in any future security negotiations.