Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The 1970s: The Nuclear Relationship under the Shah
- 2 The 1980s: Developing Hostility and the Origins of the Islamic Republic’s Nuclear Programme
- 3 The 1990s: Clinton and the Failure of Containment and Engagement
- 4 2001–8: George W. Bush and the Fai lure of Confrontation
- 5 2009–15: Obama and the Road to the JCPOA
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The 1970s: The Nuclear Relationship under the Shah
- 2 The 1980s: Developing Hostility and the Origins of the Islamic Republic’s Nuclear Programme
- 3 The 1990s: Clinton and the Failure of Containment and Engagement
- 4 2001–8: George W. Bush and the Fai lure of Confrontation
- 5 2009–15: Obama and the Road to the JCPOA
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, getting the same results over and over again, yet expecting a different result every time from the one you got last time. If you accept that as a working definition of insanity then our policy toward Iran has been certifiably insane for nearly three decades.
Again and again, domestic considerations have driven foreign policy stances.
It has been one of the defining features of US–Iranian relations over the past fifty years that Iran's domestic politics have been the most important among a range of forces determining their course.
On 14 July 2015 Iran, the United States and the other members of the P5+1 signed an agreement to resolve the conflict over the Iranian nuclear programme. Two and a half years later President Donald Trump announced that, if that agreement was not substantially rewritten to impose new restrictions on Iran, ‘the United States will not again waive sanctions in order to stay in the Iran nuclear deal’.
Trump's declaration conformed to a number of traits which had come to characterise American policy toward the Iranian nuclear programme. In the first place, despite protestations to the contrary, Trump acted unilaterally, failing to consult states who were joint signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and whose support would be necessary for the effective implementation of any new strategy. Secondly, his decision was strongly influenced by domestic political considerations. Finally, he paid no heed to how his actions were likely to resonate inside Iran. In all three aspects his behaviour mirrored that of his predecessors, with the notable exception of Barack Obama, the president who had been able to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran precisely because he had deviated from the established patterns of US policy. Under Trump, however, the ‘insanity’ that had characterised America's Iran policy for the previous three decades had returned.
This study examines the history of American policy toward Iran's nuclear programme.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The United States and the Iranian Nuclear ProgrammeA Critical History, pp. 1 - 22Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2018