America’s Iran policy is a failure – piecemeal deterrence and sanctions can only help as much as a certain point

The escalating conflict between Israel and Iran in recent months is commonly explained as an additional expansion of the Israeli war against Hamas within the Gaza Strip. Hamas maintains close relations with Iranand each share the goal of destroying the Jewish state.

But there may be more to it than that.

As a security scientist who has researched Conflicts within the Middle East for over 20 yearsI’d argue that US foreign policy within the region has failed in a decade to contain Iranian ambitions and, quite the opposite, has contributed significantly to the present escalation.

As might be seen from the recent Events along Israel’s northern borderWashington's ability to project power and protect American interests within the Middle East has declined so dramatically since 2010 that Iran has little concern about the results of its proxies launching attacks on U.S. forces and direct attacks on U.S. allies akin to Israel.

Iranian victories

The government of Iran, a Shiite state in a Sunni Muslim region, is expanding its regional influence by funding and militarily supporting violent proxy organizations in neighboring countries. These groups, in turn, attack and destabilize these countries.

Over the last decade, this clever strategy has Iran is prone to grow to be probably the most influential superpower within the Middle East.

Until the early 2010s, Hezbollah, the Shiite political and military group that Iran represents within the region, was the country's only stronghold. Promoted in Lebanon within the early Nineteen EightiesIran’s current allies include the Houthi rebels in Yemen and a loyal Network of Shiite militias in IraqIn Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has allowed Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to massive military presence.

Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas invaded Israel and triggered the Gaza War, these groups have directly attacked Israel, American military bases and US civilian assets within the region over 170 timesThe political and military sovereignty of Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq is so eroded that some American officials considered them Iran's puppet regime.

During the identical period, Iran's military nuclear program has reached its most advanced stage. In July 2024, six years after the Trump administration withdrew from the international nuclear agreement US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that Iran was weeks away from slowing down Iranian weapons development. to equip its huge and growing arsenal of ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.

Misunderstandings, containment and simplified diplomacy

Despite Iran's quite a few military and political advances over the past decade, the American government has consistently underestimated its ambitions for regional dominance. At the identical time, for my part, it has overestimated the effectiveness of long-standing US strategies.gentle power” Policy towards Iran: Containment and de-escalation.

To avoid an escalation of the conflict within the Middle East, Washington is prioritizing measures that avoid a military confrontation with Iran at almost any cost. Instead Curbing Iran’s growing regional influenceThe US has banned the sale of weapons and technology to Iran, imposed strict economic sanctions, frozen Iranian financial assets and diplomatically isolated the Iranian government.

Nevertheless, Iran's influence continues to grow. In my view, this shows that containment and de-escalation cannot deter a regime whose core policy is formed by fundamentalist ideology. The Iranian leaders invoke religious beliefs to justify their commitment to violent struggle, their regional superiority and the destruction of Israel.

“If Allah wills, there will be no Zionist regime in 25 years,” said Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneiin 2015, wherein he described the fight to destroy Israel as an issue of “jihadist morality.”

I imagine that diplomacy, negotiations, and legal and economic sanctions are the preferable solutions to most global conflicts. But modern history shows that these measures cannot bring about political change in undemocratic, fundamentalist regimes that disregard the foundations of world diplomacy – consider Nazi Germany, North Korea and the Afghan Taliban regime.

How to not cope with proxies

My Scholarship for terrorist groups suggests that the US has also made mistakes in coping with Iran's proxies. Rather than addressing them collectively as a part of a hostile network, the US treats each proxy as an isolated actor operating in a selected location and seeks to contain or de-escalate that specific threat.

In Yemen, for instance, the US has failed to stop Iran-backed Houthi rebels from seizing territory and essentially ousting the federal government. The Biden administration even pressured US ally Saudi Arabia in 2021 to Stop militarily strengthening the country's legitimate leaders of their bloody struggle for power. After the beginning of the Gaza war, the Houthis, at Iran’s behest, began Dozens of missiles fired at Western-flagged ships within the Red Sea.

It was not until early 2024 that the US confronted the Houthis. military retaliatory strikes on Houthi bases in Yemen.

In Iraq, the United States was for a very long time prepared to overlook the undeniable fact that Iran supported the Iraqi Shiite militias fighting against the terrorist militia “Islamic State”, so long as these forces proceed to take part in the war against the Islamic StateIgnoring the long-term consequences of their growing strength has its price: over the past yr, these Iraqi militias have committed quite a few American military bases within the region.

And in Syria, despite Iran’s growing influence within the wake of the Syrian civil war, the United States has continued to support Anti-Assad rebels and pro-democratic Kurdish forces.

Collapse of American deterrence

All these failed foreign policies culminated within the collapse of American deterrence within the Middle East. Simply put, the United States now not has enough power there to finish Iranian hostilities.

In April 2024 after Israel killed senior officials within the Iranian embassy complex in SyriaIran launched one in every of the biggest missile attacks in historywhich fired over 300 rockets at Israel – the primary direct attack on IsraelHowever, it has had only minor consequences, especially Economic sanctions and diplomatic outcry.

The US, which had called on Israel's Middle East allies to shoot down most Iranian missiles, again preferred to dam a meaningful response. The Biden administration called the undeniable fact that few missiles hit Israel a “victory” and insisted that the US Israel wouldn’t take part any retaliation against Iran.

America’s deep aversion to escalation became even clearer when the targeted killings of high-ranking leaders of Hezbollah and HamasEnd of July 2024 Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a bomb attack on a government guesthouse in Iran. Iran blamed Israel for Haniyeh's assassination. The New York Times reported This assessment was also reached by “several US officials who requested anonymity.”

Iran immediately swore revenge.

For months, the US had put pressure on Israel to precision-based military operations to avoid further civilian casualties within the Gaza war, which has almost 40,000 people in the primary six months. But when Israel finally appeared to accomplish that and eliminate certain terrorists chargeable for the deaths of Israelis and Americans, American policymakers feared that such cross-border attacks could lead on to a regional escalation.

If the United States wants to realize long-term peace within the Middle East, it must first acknowledge the failures of the past decade. The facts support my conclusion that Iran is an enemy that can not be easily deterred, contained, or de-escalated.