Maximum Pressure

In the past four decades, the US-Iran relations have been hostile, especially after Donald Trump took office as president in 2017. Since 1979, Washington's official policy toward Iran has been predicated on containment, push-back, and change of behavior. However, Iran usually perceives the US policy regarding itself in terms of regime change or metamorphosis. The United States has countered Iran through coercive diplomacy, crippling sanctions, military blockade, delegitimization, isolation, and demonization. The present paper aims to investigate the antagonism between the two countries in Donald Trump's administration. The main reasons behind Trump's maximum pressure campaign against Iran and Iran’s perception of this attitude constitute the main research questions addressed in this paper. The findings show that the two countries have different understandings of their hostilities. Although the US preference in Trump’s era for Iran was regime change, it would settle for a non-challenging or so-called a normal Iran. But Iran perceived the US policy as undermining its independence, identity, and existence. In fact Iran perceived Trump’s gesture on negotiation or making new deal as just a propaganda show. This paradigmatic different outlooks has blocked diplomacy. The present paper, through a descriptive-analytic method, elaborates on this antinomy mainly from Iranian side.

The US presidential election has always been influenced by the competition of candidates in the context of explaining domestic and foreign policy issues and providing solutions to overcome the crises ahead. During the election campaign in the field of foreign policy, several issues are raised. These include threats from Russia, China, North Korea, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the present article, the issue of Iran in the 2020 US presidential election has been examined in two levels: strategic imagery and tactical approaches. The question of the present study is what are the similarities and differences between the issue of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the foreign policy of Biden and Trump during the election campaign at both strategic and tactical levels? In response to this question, the following research hypothesis is proposed. In Biden and Trump's campaign policies at the level of strategic explanation, the Islamic Republic of Iran is in a similar situation in terms of being at the macro level of security threats, but at the level of tactics and methods of dealing, Trump seeks to score points all at once in the form of pressure policy. It was maximal, and Biden sought to take advantage of transatlantic multilateralism and gradual and gradual scoring by criticizing Trump's approach. The data collection method in the present study is documentary and the analysis method is descriptive-descriptive.

After three years of enduring the immense failures and fallouts of the US “maximum pressure” sanctions imposed on Iran in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal) in 2018, the Biden administration has signaled an important shift by promising to conduct a foreign policy that leads with diplomacy. The EU-brokered negotiations that have already taken place during the first half of 2021, although encountering some tactical obstacles and lack of momentum, nonetheless offer grounds for cautious optimism that the JCPOA can be rescued and that the return of all signatories to full compliance with the terms and conditions of the deal can be secured.The critical question that this article addresses is what are the key imperatives required for a durable outcome of the upcoming negotiations. This research is based on a critique of the failures of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” sanctions from the Ethical or Just War theoretical framework and the Utilitarian and Realist perspectives. The research methodologies are critical observation and empirical analysis. The article’s survey of the historical trajectory of US sanctions against Iran also supports this critique by clearly demonstrating that during periods of US over-reliance on sanctions to the exclusion of other foreign policy tools, including those of diplomacy, political engagement, and economic incentivization, successive administrations failed to advance their foreign policy goals and objectives vis-à-vis Iran. The article argues that rescuing Iran's nuclear deal and restoring its advantages for all signatories will require the implementation of essential US policy changes. It will also be necessary for the EU foreign policy establishment to direct its efforts to reinforce Biden’s inclination to return to the JCPOA in good faith with demonstrable full commitment to the terms of the original deal.

Since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, sanctions have consistently been a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy against Iran. Beyond their direct impact on bilateral tensions between the two nations, U.S. secondary or extraterritorial sanctions have also significantly influenced Iran's relations with other global actors, particularly the European Union (EU). The conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) generated optimism regarding the end of sanctions against Iran. However, with the advent of the Trump administration and its unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, the United States’ extraterritorial sanctions against Iran were reinstated, dispelling the optimism that had emerged. The US and the EU are major economic and strategic partners. Given this reality, the critical question arises: How has the resurgence of U.S. sanctions, with their extraterritorial dimensions, affected Iran-EU relations? This paper hypothesizes that the resumption and intensification of extraterritorial sanctions have negatively impacted the economic and political aspects of Iran-EU relations. On the one hand, these sanctions have reduced bilateral relations to their lowest possible level; on the other, they have constrained diplomatic channels for resolving issues. To examine this hypothesis, the analysis employs Trump’s Maximum Pressure policy and its theoretical underpinnings as its conceptual framework. The method of research is based on impact analysis. Findings indicate that while sanctions have profoundly impacted Iran-EU relations, they have failed to achieve their ultimate objective of altering behavior. A key outcome of these sanctions has been the sidelining of Europe in Iran’s foreign policy sphere.