More trouble for Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran is in trouble — again. This time, the Trump administration has announced criminal charges and sanctions against the Iranians accused in a hacking scheme to pilfer sensitive information from hundreds of universities and American government agencies. According to the US government, the nine suspects were working at the behest of the Iranian government-tied Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They nabbed over 31 terabytes of data and fed it back to the Iranian military.

Since the beginning of his term in office, President Trump has adopted a hard line on Iran, banning its citizens from entering the US and accusing the nation of interfering in the affairs of Washington’s regional allies in the Middle East. The president’s doctrine on Iran essentially reverses his predecessor’s policy of concession and reconciliation — which virtually subdued Tehran’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, and saw the hard-won nuclear agreement as proof of the concept.

The policy statements from Washington, the brand new regiment of sanctions and the appointment of incoming national security adviser, John Bolton — a foreign policy radical, who unequivocally supports wars with Iran and North Korea, indicates the Trump administration’s readiness to take on Tehran.

While the anti-Iran mood should satisfy the hawks in Washington, who were never pleased with the Obama-era detente with Iran, the impact of such aggressive policies will destabilise an already challenged region. By turning up the heat on Iran, the Trump administration can provoke the regime in Tehran to increase its engagement in conflicts across the broader Middle East that have already intensified in dangerous ways over the past five years. Therefore, the White House must carefully calculate the geopolitical ramifications of its confrontational attitude towards Iran. After all, what have decades of confrontational policies achieved?

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2018.

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