by ProfSheehan
With the president’s signature on H.R. 3364, formally known as
the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of
2017, the Trump administration — eager for legislative
accomplishments in the wake of the GOP failure to repeal the Affordable Care
Act — can take credit for turning the page on failed Obama-era policy toward
the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The bipartisan passage of the long-anticipated sanctions bill by
both houses of Congress allows the administration to take aim at rogue regimes
in Iran, Russia and North Korea. Disagreements over U.S. policy toward Russia
notwithstanding, the White House can be confident that legislators
overwhelmingly support confronting threats emanating from Iran and North Korea
and are prepared for even stronger measures to curtail the influence of these
dangerous regimes.
The White House should now build on the successful passage of
sanctions legislation to push for regime change in Tehran as an appropriate
next step.
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Trump administration surrogates can remind the
American people that the White House first put Tehran on notice for engaging in
regional destabilization shortly after Trump took office, pursued comprehensive
sanctions targeting Iranian ballistic missile programs and directed the State
Department to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a
foreign terrorist organization, thereby blacklisting it from the global economy.
The latest sanctions legislation effectively accomplishes this
latter goal by extending all terror-related sanctions to the entirety of the
IRGC as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. The question now is
how far the Trump administration is willing to go to address the Iranian
threat.
This question arose in June when the sanctions bill encountered
delays, and it arose again in July when the White House, for a second time,
certified Iranian compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA). The move surprised many seasoned Iran experts familiar with Tehran’s
belligerence, particularly given the president’s campaign pledges to scrap the
porous agreement altogether.
In fairness to the White House, the day after certifying Iranian
compliance with the Obama nuclear deal, the administration announced that it
planned a thorough review of U.S. Iran policy. Some critics of the nuclear
agreement believed that simply tearing it up on day one was not the best way to
proceed.
But virtually all analysts agree that steps must now be taken to
address the significant shortcomings of the JCPOA. The agreement’s weaknesses
and omissions — the result of Obama-era eagerness to secure a deal at any cost
— are well known on both sides of the aisle.
Trump’s embrace of the sanctions legislation may be an
indication that he intends to adopt a more strategic policy toward Iran that
would force concessions from the Islamic Republic or even encourage the
transition to a new, democratic system of government.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson previewed
this possibility in June and some Iran analysts have suggested that the Trump
administration’s assertive posture toward Tehran points in this direction. But
Trump, Tillerson and others must now pay attention to how they plan to
facilitate regime change via “elements inside Iran” to ensure a permanent
solution to the nuclear issue and other matters.
The July 1 gathering in Paris of tens of thousands of Iranian
expatriates committed to democratic change, supported by senior members of the
president’s own party, was sufficient to remove any doubts about the likelihood
of regime change being successful. It was clear to all in attendance that there
is a democratic alternative to the ayatollahs and regime change is within
reach.
At the Free Iran rally, Maryam Rajavi, president of the National
Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), characterized the then-pending
blacklisting of the IRGC as necessary to facilitate a domestic uprising against
a weakened Iranian regime. Recent protests suggest that ordinary Iranians have
tired of the regime’s civil and political repression, human rights abuses and
adversarial relationship with global powers, leaving them vulnerable to a
"Persian Spring."
But Rajavi emphasized that it will take more than a single
package of sanctions to ensure success for the resistance movement. Now that
obstacles to the IRGC’s terrorist designation have been overcome, it is time to
discuss how the U.S. and its allies can further undermine Iran’s hardline
paramilitary and curtail its foreign influence.
With provocative ballistic missile tests and harassment of
American naval vessels in the Persian Gulf becoming a near routine occurrence,
the Trump administration hardly needs a reminder of the importance of
confronting the IRGC. Now the White House must decide whether it is prepared to
bring an end to the regime that created the hardline paramilitary
organization.
By taking assertive actions and supporting the Iranian
opposition, Trump can signal not only his displeasure with JCPOA but also write
the next chapter in U.S. policy toward Iran by building on the successful
passage of congressional sanctions legislation.
Tehran’s rogue status and lack of legitimacy presents the White
House with a unique opportunity to further isolate the Iranian regime and deny
it the resources to suppress its own people the next time they rise up and
demand change. The question is whether the administration is willing to seize
the opportunity and push for regime change in Tehran.
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