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Elizabeth McKillen is a professor emerita of history at the University of Maine. Her views are her own and do not necessarily reflect those of the university.
The recent murder of thousands of protesters by the Iranian government deserves universal condemnation and a collective response by the international community. However, President Donald Trump’s recent coupling of this human rights tragedy with a demand for nuclear disarmament by Iran is unwise. Even more problematic is Trump’s attempt to bully Iran into submission by engaging in an unprecedented military buildup in the Middle East and threatening to use it against Iran.
In the event the U.S. chooses to unilaterally intervene in the country, Iran’s authoritarian leaders will likely choose to fight rather than submit. Iran’s current leadership particularly distrusts and detests the United States due to its long history of negative interventions in the country. This includes the CIA’s support for a coup against the government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in the 1950s after it chose to nationalize the oil industry. The coup brought brutal rule by the Shah of Iran, which led to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and subsequent seizure of American hostages.
U.S.-Iranian relations thawed a bit during the Obama administration with the signing of a multinational nuclear agreement reached with Iran, but Trump withdrew from this agreement when he took office during his first administration. More recently, the U.S. has been implicated in helping cause an economic meltdown in Iran by sanctioning Iranian oil and causing a dollar shortage. This has led Iranian leaders to argue that the United States once again seeks to bring Iran under its domination and is an existential threat to Iranian independence. They have even suggested that the United States and other Western powers were responsible for the popular protests in Iran.
Viewed in a purely strategic sense, suggest analysts for the Bismarck Cables Substack, it is also irrational to assume that any nation state would preemptively give up its arms, assuming it wants to maintain its independence, when it is surrounded by the military forces of another nation. It would be akin, they suggest, to a medieval castle lowering the draw bridge to welcome in the invaders. Iranian leaders believe that their only defense and strength at the bargaining table is in keeping their missiles.
In sum, Trump’s bullying tactics are counterproductive. Actual military attacks on Iran would only further strengthen the resolve of Iran’s current leadership, which believes they need nuclear weapons to defend the country from the Yankee aggressor. True peace and nuclear disarmament can be achieved only through the actions of a more neutral international body such as the United Nations.
Trump’s recent talk about “regime change” in Iraq should make all Americans wary for, as analysts have suggested, it would likely involve a lengthy and complex war more like that in Iraq than Venezuela. By comparison with Venezuela, Iran possesses more military power and significant influence over proxy states and terrorist groups, which could launch attacks on the United States and Americans. A prolonged war might create regional instability and lead the Iranians to block the Straits of Hormuz through which vital oil and energy supplies flow.
It is Iranians themselves who should ultimately determine the kind of future they seek for their country and the best methods for achieving it. Americans, meanwhile, should support congressional actions designed to limit Trump’s military interventions without an official declaration of war by Congress as mandated by the Constitution.