How the Obama administration should engage with Iran in its last year

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is a man driven by a deep and abiding anger toward the United States.  His psychology was forged in the torture chambers of the Shah, whose interrogators’ techniques the U.S. partly introduced; by a bombing in 1981, conducted by an organization that the U.S. government has provided patronage to; and by the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War—a conflict the Islamic Republic of Iran instigated but that the U.S. nevertheless exacerbated by providing unconditional support for Saddam Hussein, including his chemical weapons program.  

Concurrently along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the U.S. was, at best, turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s and Pakistan’s indoctrination of radical Islamists, some of whom later formed Al Qaeda.  The ideology these two governments propagated has infected tens of thousands who are now ravaging Iraq and Syria and are on a mission to impose their barbaric rule wherever they are able to conquer.   

{mosads}This, in addition to the U.S.’s support for Syrian rebel groups intertwined with Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra, as well as the lack of public criticism against the U.S.’s regional partners reportedly backing radical Sunni Islamists, partly explains why senior Iranian officials believe the U.S. remains the same old Great Satan despite the nuclear agreement and the Obama administration’s unprecedented diplomatic overtures. 

Knowledge of this history should provide U.S. officials with some appreciation for the substantive roots of Khamenei’s paranoia, hostility, and cynicism.  Applied wisely, it might also help them find a way to help resolve the seemingly intractable conflicts in Syria and Iraq.  Although multidimensional, these conflicts are fueled in part by the deeply rooted hostility between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran—Khamenei and his revolution-era compatriots in particular.   

Confronting this history with courage and integrity would be difficult and politically costly but considering the human and financial costs of deeper American military intervention in the region, the Obama administration should consider it a moral obligation to try. 

American officials may argue that the U.S. has already acknowledged helping to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected government in 1953 and that Khamenei spurned the Clinton administration’s gesture (partly because it included an ill-advised implicit criticism of Iran’s political system).  Unfortunately, acknowledgement of the coup is hardly a full accounting of the U.S.’s deeply harmful actions toward Iran. Therefore it is unsurprising that Khamenei would dismiss them as inadequate and insincere.    

Realistically, even if the U.S. acknowledged responsibility for its worst wrongs against Iran, offered an official apology, and invited Iran to turn a new chapter in its relations with the U.S., there is little reason for optimism that Khamenei would reciprocate.  He has a tendency to perceive every effort to improve relations as an attempt at “infiltration.”  He is also a highly Machiavellian leader—evidenced by his simultaneous demonization of Israel and support for Assad—and ostensibly fails to appreciate how his own rhetoric and actions perpetuate U.S. hostility.   

The psychological weight of his experiences under the Shah and in the first decade of the Islamic Republic’s existence, weighed against the words of an untrustworthy adversary, would undoubtedly make it difficult for him to overcome his paranoia, bitterness, and desire for revenge, particularly given that some measure of justice is not likely to be forthcoming.  (Those Americans most responsible for the suffering inflicted on him and his compatriots are now dead in any case but perhaps an American offer of medical treatment and technology for the victims of Saddam’s chemical weapons attacks would not be so far out of the question.)      

The Obama administration and its successor may choose to continue attempting to contain Iran’s regional power in the hope that 76 year-old Khamenei’s successor will prove to be a less difficult leader to engage with perhaps five years down the road.  Considering Khamenei’s strong influence over who will elect his successor, however, and the leadership roles the younger revolutionary generation will continue to occupy for two decades to come, the U.S. may have to weather the consequences of previous administrations’ decisions for quite some time.   

In the meantime, Khamenei may make one last attempt in his final years against Israel if Iran’s proxies are not kept too busy shoring up Assad.  Even more problematic, the nuclear clocks of the region, set to the de facto 10-year Iran nuclear agreement, will be counting down.  Setting back those clocks will depend on sustained arduous work to improve relations over the next decade.

President Rouhani stated in November last year that if U.S. officials “modify their policies, correct errors committed in these 37 years and apologize to the Iranian people, the situation will change and good things can happen.”  The U.S. should interpret this as a helpful nudge from a leader who is constrained by his office but who wishes for better relations.   In March 2009, in response the new Obama administration’s overtures, Khamenei himself replied, “If there is any genuine change, it must manifest itself in action….   If you change, our behavior will change too.” 

In its last year in office, may the Obama administration demonstrate America’s exceptionalism by continuing to work courageously and judiciously in pursuit of peace for the sake of a younger generation of Americans and Iranians.    

Buonomo is a geopolitical risk analyst with Stratas Advisors.  The views expressed here are his own and not those of Stratas Advisors.