On Iran, Can Trump Make the Transition From Campaign Rhetoric to Policy?

On Iran, Can Trump Make the Transition From Campaign Rhetoric to Policy?
President-elect Donald Trump and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis at Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, N.J., Nov. 19, 2016 (AP photo by Carolyn Kaster).

The one-year anniversary of the Iran nuclear agreement’s implementation on Monday—combined with Senate confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees last week and the death of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Jan. 8—has put Iran back in the spotlight.

In their congressional testimony, Trump’s nominees for foreign policy and national security posts offered a range of views about the nuclear agreement and the larger problem of Iran for U.S. national interests. At the same time, Iranians are debating the implications for Iran’s foreign policy of Rafsanjiani’s final exit from the political stage. While the net effect of these new dynamics is not yet clear, the trend line is troubling—if not necessarily catastrophic.

The new administration seems poised for early activism on its national security priorities. The views of Trump’s Cabinet nominees, however, do not suggest an easy consensus about how to transition from the president-elect’s brash campaign promises—to cancel the Iran nuclear agreement, for example—to the messy world of less-than-ideal policy options. How the new administration signals its intentions regarding Iran will in turn affect Iran’s leaders, who are mostly focused on their own domestic politics in the run-up to a presidential election later this year.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review