New Beginnings: Trump’s Maximum Pressure Iran Policy and Biden’s Dilemma

Brinkmanship is the act of pursuing risky policy to the boundaries of safety in order to cause the other side to yield in fear. It is a word popularized by the prelude to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. And, it is a fitting description of former President Trump’s Iranian posture. The era of the former President’s aggressive rhetoric towards and maximum pressure policy on Iran nearly led (twice!) to another American intervention in the Middle East.

The saga began with Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and reimposition of sanctions on Iran in May 2018. The Trump administration was concerned that the absence of economic sanctions gave Iran the affluence to “export dangerous missiles, fuel conflicts across the Middle East, and support terrorist proxies.” 

What followed was an intensification of the US military presence around the Middle East region. 

USS Abraham Lincoln entering the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar, April 2019. (Paul McLeary/Breaking Defence)

In June 2019, an additional 2500 ground soldiers were deployed to the region. Similarly, the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and four B-52 Bombers were deployed to the Persian Gulf following Iranian violations of freedom of navigation on freight. The administration also initiated the International Maritime Security Construct in September 2019. The construct is a coalition of 8 states who deploy naval warships to the region to protect the free transit of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz. 

Amid rising tensions, on June 20, 2019, Iran shot down a US surveillance drone in the Strait of Hormuz claiming it violated the country’s airspace. This culminated in President Trump ordering a strike on Iranian military targets; however, he called off the strike 10 minutes before it was planned to occur.

This was the first narrow avoidance of an armed confrontation.

The remnants of the drone strike on Major General Soleimani outside Baghdad International Airport. (Whitney Webb/MintPress) 

On January 3, 2020, a US drone strike assassinated Iraqi Quds Force Commander, Major General Qasem Soleimani. Fears emerged that Iranian retaliation would spiral into conflict. Iran reacted by launching ballistic missiles at two airbases in Iraq where US personnel were located. To the world’s fortune, no one was killed.

Similarly, this brinkmanship narrowly evaded an armed conflict. 

Things look different in the new Biden administration. The absence of foreign policy hawks such as John Bolton in Biden’s cabinet may signal an end to any confrontation with Iran. Biden also hopes to revive the JCPOA.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pre-empts this, stating “the ball is in the US court now. If Washington returns to Iran’s 2015 Nuclear Deal, we will also fully respect our commitments under the pact . . . We expect the incoming US administration to return to the rule of law and commit themselves . . . in the next four years, to remove all the black spots of the previous four years.”

However, it is anticipated Biden will not immediately revert to President Obama’s conciliatory stance. The new President has demonstrated his resolve, for example by authorizing a military airstrike against Iranian-backed Shi’ite militant groups (Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada in Syria) in February 2021. As diplomatic talks resume next week in Vienna, it is expected that Biden will build on the agreement to add stricter constraints on Iran’s nuclear program as well as address its “destabilizing activities, which threaten our friends and partners in the region.”

Ultimately, the Biden administration will not be as compulsive and dangerous in ‘pushing to the brink’ with Iran as its predecessor did. Even so, just as disputes occurred between Iran and the United States presided by Trump and Obama (the captured US drones in 2011 and alleged US involvement in the Stuxnet cyber-attack in 2011 come into mind for Obama), they will occur under Biden. Expect the threats of conflict to lessen, but do not anticipate Iranian-US diplomatic relations to recuperate to a significant extent.

Indeed, the evolving Iranian-US relationship will have effects on the rest of the Western world as well.

Fire and smoke emerging from Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil facility after the drone attack (Shagul Tamil/Storyful)

First, it is likely to benefit from an Iran that is less provoked by the United States. 

Many countries, such as Australia, have poor oil supply. And, we remember the instability caused by the alleged Iranian-sponsored Houthi attacks on Saudi oil facilities in September 2019. This reduced Saudi oil production by 50% and caused a 10% increase in crude oil prices internationally in mid-September 2019.

Moreover, a less aggressive Iran will lead to a more stable Middle East region. The West relies on the free and unobstructed passage of freight and merchant vessels transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, the ‘jugular of the global economy.’ 

In the best case, international security will improve should the Iranian nuclear program be restricted by the JCPOA. 

However, the end result of this new era of diplomatic relations is yet to be seen. One possibility is that the easing of economic sanctions and trade embargos could lead to greater economic power for Iran. This may increase Iran’s manufacture and export of non-nuclear missiles as well as heighten its financing Shi’ite militant groups across the Middle East such as Hamas, the Houthi rebels, and Hezbollah.