Former President Barack Obama acknowledged in an October podcast interview that he made a “mistake” in not supporting in significant ways the 2009-2010 protest movement in Iran — at the time, the most significant challenge to the Iranian regime since its inception.
In the view of many Iranians, that “mistake” is being repeated in Washington within some influential circles, now that the current uprising in Iran enters its fourth month. Unlike the “Green Movement” protests of 2009-2010, the one underway now is a far greater threat to the regime’s modus operandi since the 1979 Islamic revolution. It is too early to say categorically that the regime will fall — but a change in its strategy toward its own people and the region is possible.
Yet, some leading Democrats, left-leaning think tanks and members of President Biden’s administration appear so confident the regime will remain as before that they are failing to seize the moment and aid the protesters. They appear to be banking on re-engagement at some time in the future with the Iranian regime over three key issues — the failed nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA), Iran’s ever-expanding militarization of the Middle East, and its human-rights violations. Just this month, Biden himself hinted that the nuclear deal is dead but then declined to announce it officially.
How many uprisings do the chattering classes in Washington have to watch before the “mistake” is no more?
I was on Tehran’s streets in 1999, as a correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, when the first significant uprisings emerged since the 1979 revolution. Yet the talk in Washington then was the same as it is now — murmurs of support for the Iranian people but no significant policy changes toward the regime.
It is important to understand that the very same experts and government officials, who claim to be advocates of human rights around the world, have other objectives when it comes to Iran. This seems to include such Biden administration officials as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the die-hard U.S. special envoy on Iran, Robert Malley.
The Iranian regime has provided zero evidence of addressing the three concerns mentioned above, each of which is important to Washington. Yet some left-leaning echo chambers in Washington continue to defend negotiating with the regime despite its torture, beating and execution of demonstrators since September. This defense comes in subtle forms, from op-eds arguing that sanctions never work and therefore the U.S. Treasury should not pile more on Iran, to false arguments that Iran is addressing the current crisis by taking steps such as shutting down its so-called morality police, which was tasked with beating protesters. Iran does not need a specific enforcement body to kill its own citizens; it has killed without pause since the fake announcement about the morality police a few weeks ago.
Some think-tank experts arguing against U.S. policy that might expedite the fall of the Iranian regime act more like regime advocates than impartial analysts. Some have not been to Iran in decades; others have never been there.
When journalists question their motives, the answer is often that engagement with Iran — and, therefore, no public criticism whatsoever of the regime — is necessary because Iran otherwise will develop a nuclear weapon. This argument has proven to be false. Even before the Obama administration began serious discussions with Iran (the process that became the JCPOA) in 2014-2015, under the pretext that a nuclear deal was absolutely necessary no matter the costs, U.S. intelligence officials stated in private briefings that Iran had no intention of developing a nuclear weapon. The truth, however, is that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon if the regime thinks it is in its interest to do so.
In addition, as the Iranians were then promising Washington future negotiations over other issues (such as its militarization of the Middle East) if a nuclear deal were struck, Iranian officials were giving private briefings (one of which I attended in Oslo) stating just the opposite — that they never intended to discuss other issues of concern to the United States and Arab Gulf states, then or ever.
Recently, I asked the president of one Washington-based think tank why he would hire an Iran “expert” who advocates for the regime’s interests in Washington when thousands of Iranians are being brutalized in the current uprising or executed simply for speaking out. He expressed concern about Iranian protesters but then defended his think tank’s hiring process as “vigorous,” without really addressing the issue.
Some think-tank “experts” have attended private briefings over the years in New York with former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, repeating his propaganda without question to U.S. media outlets. In effect, they have served as spokesmen for Zarif while presenting themselves as objective “experts” with “exclusive” information from regime officials.
As for U.S. officials, it would seem logical that those focused on the regime — especially a special envoy for Iran — should work and be in contact with dissidents inside Iran and Iranians who have fled their country over the decades, not just with Iranian officials. Yet that seems not to be the case, in the past or still today. The Biden administration’s special envoy, for example, has incessantly advocated for the JCPOA, including in his previous role as president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, which itself has been a longtime supporter of the JCPOA and of entreating with Iran.
As more Iranians are executed, beaten or imprisoned, the U.S. government is failing again to respond effectively to an Iranian uprising which could change the regime’s post-revolutionary history — and too many in the Washington think-tank community are helping to keep the regime afloat, too. What Tehran understands from all of this is that Washington will do as it did before, in 1999 and again in 2010: Do nothing and wait it out. Thus, Tehran sees no retribution at the end of the tunnel and few risks in getting there.
Geneive Abdo is a fellow at the Wilson Center and the author of four books on the Middle East. Her fifth and forthcoming book is about Arab Shia communities.