Would Harris Follow Obama and Biden in Engaging with Iran?

I n 2023, the greatest exemplar of the Realist school of diplomacy, Henry Kissinger, died. Though many have criticized him for his perceived amoral diplomacy, he was always clearheaded about his goals and the means for achieving them. The history of our relations with Iran under Presidents Obama and Biden has been to let wishes and dreams stand in for realistic goals. Ironically, they may have been inspired by Kissinger: If Nixon could go to China, the thinking may have been, then Obama could go to Iran.

Iran has been a bone in the throat of American presidents since Jimmy Carter and the hostage crisis. Iran under the mullahs is a threat that we can’t ignore or solve. We have tried approaches from cajoling outreach on mutual interests to quasi-wars. But no matter our approach, the mullahs remained in charge of Iran, still the sworn enemies of the U.S.

In my years in the State Department, I never worked directly on Iran policy, but I did work on the periphery for several years, which gave me some insights into that policy during the administration of President Obama. In my occasional interactions with those working on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), they were adamant that they were hard-nosed realists and not starry-eyed idealists. They were convinced that they could box Iran into giving up its plan to develop nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, unlike Kissinger, they lacked the triangulation to break a decades-long logjam. Beijing did not accept Kissinger’s approach because Mao had developed a taste for capitalism, but because the Soviet Union had become a mortal threat to China. In the case of Iran, there was nothing to triangulate; the U.S. was the closest thing to a mortal threat. And when the country you view as an existential enemy asks you to negotiate, there is little to lose.

The dream of rapprochement with Iran overcame reality. As often happens in foreign policy, once the goal was established, it was pursued no matter the cost. The personal investment in achieving it of those who established it makes failure a non-option. The Obama administration probably saw a successful JCPOA as the beginning of a new, productive relationship with Iran. It ignored Iran’s continued support for terror proxies in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. The JCPOA also came with deadlines on the restrictions on Iran, making it self-defeating.

Under President Trump, U.S. relations with Iran descended to the lowest levels since President Reagan’s 1987-88 “Tanker War.” President Trump scuttled the JCPOA, reimposed sanctions, and assassinated Iran’s IRGC commander and terror chief, Qasem Soleimani. The election of President Biden resulted in a rapid snapback to President Obama’s engagement with Iran. The U.S. reduced or eliminated sanctions and returned frozen assets, and Iranian oil began to flow freely, providing economic relief to the mullahs. Instead of warming to Washington, Iran became more belligerent. It increased its involvement in the Syrian civil war, stepped up its support of its terror proxies, solidified the Iranian crescent, an area of control stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean, and finally, launched barrages of ballistic missiles at Israel.

Under a President Harris it is extremely doubtful that President Biden’s foreign policy towards Iran would substantially change, despite her recent aggressive rhetoric. Her top foreign-policy advisor, Philip Gordon, has a lineage that extends from President Clinton through President Obama. Jewish Insider describes him as “one of the biggest boosters of the Iran nuclear deal.” And keeping along the same track is always easier than making a radical change in policy.

I hope the next administration has a better answer to the Iran problem than previous administrations have had. My years working on regional problems did teach me some things. Anyone working the Middle East should have a strong sense of humility. The best-laid plans are sure to “gang aft agley.” The area from Cairo to Kazakhstan is the most complicated, rigged Jenga game in which every piece you successfully pull out is sure to create a disaster somewhere else. Beware all-encompassing utopian solutions, nation-building, democratization, and Springs, Arab or otherwise. Be satisfied with any friendly stability you can find. When Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was overthrown at the beginning of the Arab Spring, many said that it showed that dictatorships were inherently unstable. But Mubarak had presided over 30 years of peace with Israel and friendship with the U.S.

Whoever is the next president will find the job of dealing with Iran improved by Israel’s actions since the October 7 massacre. Properly applied military action has proved more productive in stymieing Iran than years of negotiation. But we must keep in mind that the sad paradox of Iran is that while the mullahs hate us, America is more popular among the Iranian people than nearly any other country in the region.

If you are wondering how a President Harris would deal with Iran, I leave you with a bit of wisdom from Henry Kissinger: “It is an illusion to believe that leaders gain in profundity while they gain experience. As I have said, the convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office. There is little time for leaders to reflect.”