Iran

Read or watch urgent insights into America’s objectives in Iran and the policies that would best advance U.S. security, help the Iranian people, and improve the prospects for long-term regional stability.

Washington Institute experts assess the immediate implications of U.S.-Israeli military strikes on Iran, including the regime’s future after major leadership losses, reactions inside Iran and Lebanon, the fallout for the Gulf states, the contours of potential diplomacy once the fighting stops, and more.

Rather than choose between a narrow nuclear deal and open-ended war, the United States should conduct limited military strikes against Iran’s missile program and security services and double down on a pressure strategy that was working.

Neither side seems to want a war, but they fear the costs of backing down and are apparently convinced the other side will blink first.

Setting aside the broader array of deep Western policy concerns about Iran—including its terrorism sponsorship, direct and proxy aggression against Israel and the Gulf states, and brutal violence against its own people—what nuclear terms would negotiators have to insist on to avoid the setbacks of the JCPOA process and keep the regime from acquiring nuclear weapons for the long term?

Besides the welcome symbolic value of taking action amid bloody regime crackdowns inside Iran, the designation gives multilateral law enforcement agencies and individual member states a powerful new tool set for limiting terrorist plots and criminal activity on their soil.

Military strikes, stringent sanctions enforcement, and help for the opposition could sharpen the multiple crises that may eventually prove the regime’s undoing.

As protests grow, regime leaders have no clear options for scaring Iranians off the streets, intimidating foreign powers, or escaping their wider strategic crisis.

Firsthand recollections of how the Islamic Revolution progressed on the ground raise questions about the current protest movement’s prospects for success.