As President-elect Donald Trump staffs his national security team, speculation is swirling about how the incoming Trump administration will manage some of the most difficult international security problems of the day. While much of the attention thus far has been devoted to the war in Ukraine, the Iranian nuclear issue isn’t far behind on the list of priorities.
Like all of his predecessors dating to President George W. Bush, Trump’s top goal on Iran is straightforward: Prevent Tehran from creating a nuclear weapon. The question is what combination of threats, pressure, concessions and inducements is required to accomplish this objective. According to reports, Trump’s incoming administration is already drafting executive orders that would redouble a previous campaign of maximum pressure, which was designed to cause so much pain to the Iranian economy that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would be forced to come to the negotiating table on U.S. terms. As one former Trump administration official said days after the election, “Tightening the economic noose around Iran is going to be a day one foreign policy priority to start cleaning up (Joe) Biden’s Middle East mess.”
Trump, however, shouldn’t rush into a policy that proved grossly ineffectual the first time around. Instead, he should cater to his deal-making instincts, which means being pragmatic, leveraging Washington’s diplomatic power and dropping maximalist demands the Iranians have no intention of meeting.
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