Nicholas Hopton, Distinguished Fellow in international security at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London and former UK ambassador to Iran
The latest spike in military action is not going to produce Iran’s capitulation – it is just the latest twist. Economic pressure is also unlikely to work because China, Russia and many other countries which trade with Iran are not going to support unilateral US sanctions.
Iran can continue to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz – they have a thumb on the jugular of the global economy.
What is the White House’s exit strategy?
Well, the US has already found it. If Trump was able to put a sustained effort into negotiating the deal outlined in June’s MoU, that is the off-ramp.
Not only would a deal give the US a kind of victory because it would weaken the hardliners in the Islamic Republic, but also reassure everyone that Iran is not going to get a nuclear weapon.
There is a silver bullet in the MoU which is the lifting of all US sanctions on Iran.
What lifting those sanctions would do over time is weaken Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC). Economic engagement between the outside world and Iran in a new way would gradually force radical political and social change – so you end up with an Islamic regime, but of a very different nature.
Of course, that would not be straightforward to achieve, because of extensive IRGC penetration of the Iranian economy. But it should work, if given enough time and if the US and its partners exercised strategic patience which, sadly, is in short supply at this point.
For the time being, I think we’re going to carry on with a messy, inconclusive situation that is bad for everyone.
