The United States has a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
More than a decade ago, President Hassan Rouhani acknowledged that the Iranian economy had shrunk 5.4 percent. Secretary of State John Kerry’s response was not to take advantage of Iran’s desperation to impose terms but rather to subsidize the Iranian regime to the tune of $1 billion monthly to reward it for coming to the table.
The strategy was so strategically backward as to defy any explanation other than Kerry hoped to win a Nobel Prize by sacrificing U.S. national security.
The strategy was so strategically backward as to defy any explanation other than Kerry hoped to win a Nobel Prize by sacrificing U.S. national security. Even though the resulting Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was just a political agreement and not a treaty, Kerry designed it to discourage any future successor from reconsidering his commitments. This is why he frontloaded Iran’s payoff.
Kerry’s broader generosity toward Iran in the face of both need and logic was a further gift to the Islamic Republic, especially as the bulk of cash flooding into Iran ended up in Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accounts. This occurred for two reasons: First, the Revolutionary Guards operated the aircraft that transferred the cash the Obama team and their European counterparts provided; no force inside Iran could then make the team. Second, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s business wing monopolizes almost all sectors in which foreign firms invest, from oil services to automobile manufacturing to logistics.
That said, President Donald Trump’s “Maximum Pressure” worked. There was historical logic. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s decision to release American hostages and accept a ceasefire to end the Iran-Iraq War both came when isolation and the cost to the Iranian economy grew too great to bear. Sanctioning the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was a wise move as it increased both legal liability for European companies prone to prioritize greed over security and reputational risk to those countries who sought to walk a tightrope. Iran hemorrhaged money.
In theory, maximum pressure can work again though its weakness as a policy is also evident. Not only has the Biden-era replenishment of Iran’s coffers given Tehran a buffer, but Iranian officials have had four years to solidify and shield their dealings with China. Biden’s decision to end pressure and infuse the Iranian regime with cash also highlights another problem: Tehran now believes they can outlast any maximum pressure. They may not be wrong.
Maximum pressure, however, is not enough, nor are its drawbacks irrelevant. The day the Islamic Republic falls, Iran will rejoin the community of nations and become an ally. If the United States has decimated Iran’s economy beyond the point of recovery, then Iranians may struggle for decades, much like Iraqis have after the sanctions-era there.
Meaningful sanctions are important; for too long, targeted
There can be no meaningful change inside Iran without fracturing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for a simple reason: The Corps acts as a Praetorian Guard to defend the leadership against the people.
sanctions amounted to virtue signaling with proponents knowing from the start they would not bring change. In essence, U.S. administrations alternated between wielding an axe and a feather.
To Treasury Department officials, there are few problems that do not have a Treasury Department solution. Iran, however, cannot be one of them. Ideology and structure also matter. There can be no meaningful change inside Iran without fracturing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for a simple reason: The Corps acts as a Praetorian Guard to defend the leadership against the people. Too many treat the Revolutionary Guard as an elite military, but it is more than that: Unlike the army whose mission is territorial defense, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ job is to defend the Islamic Revolution and so counters enemies both foreign and domestic.
While a series of naïve officials ranging from Deputy Secretaries of State Strobe Talbott and Richard Armitage to National Security Advisors Susan Rice and Jake Sullivan put faith in the regime reformists, none addressed the obvious problem: Even if reformists were sincere, no substantive change was possible unless the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps allowed it. The question then becomes either how to convince the Revolutionary Guards or, conversely, how to fracture the organization.
Only the most naïve diplomatic would believe it possible to change the collective mind of the Revolutionary Guards. The group organizes around an ideology in which its core members receive indoctrination from elementary school age. Their reason to exist and the privileges they receive are tied to their revolutionary fervor.
Fracturing the Revolutionary Guards is more difficult but, after 45 years of Islamic Republic, there is no substitute. Here, there is some good news. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not monolithic. Core members are true believers, but some recruits join for the privileges, especially if the alternative is conscription into the regular army.
Other fissures also exist: There are generational differences between those from unprivileged backgrounds who volunteered in the Iran-Iraq War versus their children who are now elite but may not be so willing to sacrifice. Conversely, many of those from conservative families resent the corruption of the religious elite. Many war-wounded veterans, meanwhile, remain bitter that the regime does not respect their sacrifice and care for them and their families in the manner they expected.
Should the United States combine this with a strategy of targeted assassination, effectively giving top Revolutionary Guardsmen an either-or choice, then Washington could essentially make top Iranian officials an offer they cannot refuse.
If Trump, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are serious about ending the Iranian regime’s threat permanently, there can be no shortcuts. Certainly, they should embrace Maximum Pressure to drain Revolutionary Guard resources, but they must also identify fissures and exploit them. For example, the United States might offer free medical care for Revolutionary Guards veterans via a U.S. hospital ship in Dubai. Should the disgruntled veterans accept the care, it would be an intelligence and propaganda coup; should the Iranian regime prevent their travel to Dubai, it would only increase internal anger.
Both the U.S. intelligence community and the Treasury Department should identify offshore Revolutionary Guards accounts, be they cyber, cash, or gold to seize them to prevent their use during and after Khamenei’s death. Cooption might work in other case: Just as the Truman administration held its nose and gave asylum to Nazi nuclear scientists, should the United States offer immunity to certain Revolutionary Guards weapons experts on the condition they defect prior to the regime’s fall? Should the United States combine this with a strategy of targeted assassination, effectively giving top Revolutionary Guardsmen an either-or choice, then Washington could essentially make top Iranian officials an offer they cannot refuse.
There is no magic formula but given the ability of zombie regimes like North Korea, Eritrea, Cuba, Venezuela and, in the past, Saddam’s Iraq to survive for the simple reason that their leaders and security forces do not care about the welfare of ordinary citizens, expecting the Iranian regime to fold by starving it of cash may be simplistic. It is time to embrace a strategy not only of maximum pressure but also maximum Revolutionary Guard fragmentation.
