During Donald Trump’s anticipated second term, the most essential foreign challenge he will confront is not posed by Russia, China, or North Korea, but rather by the Islamic regime in Iran. While Russia, China, and North Korea engage in traditional power politics and can be influenced through negotiation, coercion, and incentives, Iran operates differently. Unlike these nations, Iran is unyielding in its hostility toward the United States.
The notion that Iran’s leaders are open to negotiating with President-elect Trump is fundamentally flawed. Their chants of “Death to America” during public gatherings reflect a deep-seated belief in their mission to annihilate the United States, a goal they actively strategize towards every day.
The Iranian regime has inflicted severe casualties on Americans over the years, with known instances including the murder of 241 U.S. Marines in the Beirut bombing of 1983, support for the 9/11 hijackers, and the deaths of 600 U.S. soldiers in Iraq through the use of explosive devices. Additionally, the FBI has accused them of plotting to kill Trump himself.
Soleimani’s legacy continues to shape U.S.-Iran tensions
So far, only one U.S. president has effectively confronted Iran for its actions. Trump ordered a drone strike against Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani on January 3, 2020, as Soleimani organized Iraqi militias to attack the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
Bob Woodward, in his book “Rage,” recounts that Trump’s decision was based on intelligence intercepts. The intelligence was derived from human sources with access to the Supreme Leader’s inner circle, which I elaborate on in my book, “The Iran House.”
Trump recognized that permitting Soleimani to escalate attacks on the U.S. Embassy would severely harm American interests, a judgment that proved correct. While military force can temporarily influence the Iranian regime’s actions, it at the end fails to change their long-term objectives. They may retreat for a time, but they will inevitably regroup and plan new attacks.
Negotiating with a regime whose core mission is to destroy you is futile. While they might alter their conduct temporarily, their fundamental ambitions remain unchanged. Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, claims his administration is willing to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with the U.S. and its allies.
However, Pezeshkian has limited influence within the Iranian government. As a candidate selected by the Islamic elite, he operates as a mere puppet, with true power residing in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Khamenei resisted the 2015 nuclear deal until the last moment to extract greater concessions from Secretary of State John Kerry.
Both the IRGC and Khamenei are opposed to any deal with the U.S. Khamenei ideologically rejects engagement with the “Great Satan,” while the IRGC fears losing its control over the lucrative grey market oil trade with China, which currently sees sales averaging two million barrels daily. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), asked by NBC News about the feasibility of a deal with Iran, accurately summarized the situation.
He stated, “If the Iranian regime tomorrow said, ‘We’re going to stop trying to become the regional power, we’re going to stop our nuclear weapons, we’re going to stop sponsoring terrorism, we’re going to stop trying to kill you — which is what they’re trying to do with Donald Trump — we’re going to stop all of these things — theoretically, yes. Of course, you could work on something like that.”
However, Rubio emphasized that achieving a genuine agreement with the Iranian regime—rather than a superficial one like Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal—is unlikely because the policies the U.S. demands Iran abandon are fundamental to the regime’s existence.
To effectively leverage pressure on Tehran, the next Trump administration should reinstate the “Maximum Pressure” sanctions on Iranian oil exports. These sanctions are already established, but Biden halted their enforcement on his first day in office, resulting in a dramatic increase in Iranian oil sales from 400,000 barrels per day in January 2021 to over 2.5 million barrels daily today.
Trump’s decisive action against Soleimani reshaped the U.S.-Iran dynamic
The U.S. must take additional steps. In a paper for the America First Policy Institute, I propose that we combine Maximum Pressure on the regime with “Maximum Support” for the Iranian populace. Supporting the Iranian people in their quest to replace the Islamic regime aligns with U.S. national security interests—not through external imposition of regime change, but by empowering the Iranian people to instigate change themselves.
What specific actions can the U.S. undertake? First, we can undermine the legitimacy of the Iranian regime by banning its officials from international travel, including to the United Nations, expelling them from global organizations, and preventing them from accessing their stolen assets in Western banks.
Second, we should amplify pro-freedom Iranian voices through U.S. international media outlets, such as the Voice of America’s Persian service, which unfortunately is regarded as the “voice of the mullahs” by many Iranians.
Third, President Trump ought to appoint a special ambassador to the Iranian people to support the pro-freedom movement in its ongoing efforts to develop into a formidable force capable of opposing the regime through non-violent means. This ambassador should engage with Iranian opposition leaders in Washington and elsewhere and promote their initiatives on the international stage.
The U.S. can provide secure communication technologies to allow opposition protesters to connect safely without government surveillance and to communicate with the outside world when the regime restricts internet access. Over its four-decade conflict with the U.S., the Iranian regime has exploited state power to assassinate Americans, infiltrate U.S. government agencies, and even attempt to kill a former and future president.
It is time for the U.S. to respond—not with military intervention or violent tactics, but with the tools that underscore our democratic values: unrestricted communication and a principled stance in favor of the Iranian people’s freedom against their Islamic oppressors.
Repeatedly, the Iranian populace has demonstrated through large-scale protests their desire for regime change. It’s time to extend a helping hand to these allies. Kenneth R. Timmerman serves as a senior fellow at the America First Policy Institute. His latest non-fiction work, “The Iran House: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue,” has recently been published by Bombardier Books.
