Swell of Iranian unrest presents dilemma over U.S. sanctions
Trump faces a series of deadlines in two weeks on reimposing restrictions
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has given full-throated support to the anti-government protesters in Iran. But the rising tide of unrest there complicates an already vexing decision for him: whether he should rip up the nuclear deal struck by his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Starting in two weeks, Trump faces a series of deadlines on whether the United States should reimpose sanctions on Iran that were lifted as a result of the agreement. Trump has already disavowed the deal, and he warned Congress and European allies last October that if they did not improve its terms, “the agreement will be terminated.”
With little progress on that front, and signs of a crackdown in Iran, analysts worry that Trump’s patience will run out. But they fear that if he acts now, it would shift the blame from the Iranian government, which is besieged by the protests and charges of corruption, to the U.S., which would be seen as forsaking an agreement with which Iran is complying.
The White House deflected questions Tuesday about how the protests would affect Trump’s calculus. “He’s going to keep all of his options on the table,” the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said. Trump’s ultimate goal, she added, was for the Iranian people to have “basic human rights” and for Iran to stop backing terrorism.
For Trump, the first major eruption of political unrest
in Iran since 2009 carries opportunities as well as risks. Sanders emphasized the White House’s unyielding support for the demonstrators, which she contrasted to the more reticent approach taken by Obama in 2009 during protests that became known as the Green Movement.
The State Department on Tuesday urged Iran not to restrict access to social media services like Instagram and messaging platforms like Telegram, which the protesters are using to spread word about anti-government gatherings. It encouraged Iranians to use virtual private networks to sidestep the government’s efforts to block them.
According to The Associated Press, at least 21 people have died and hundreds have been arrested over six days of demonstrations, the largest in Iran since the “Green Movement” that erupted in 2009 following a disputed presidential election. The new outbreak started in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, and has expanded to many others.
Iranian authorities have sought to suppress the protests in part by shutting down key social media sites protesters use to communicate, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and the messaging app Telegram. On Tuesday, Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein urged Iran’s government to unblock the sites.
Trump himself sought to link the grievances of the Iranian demonstrators to his predecessor’s policies, saying that the corruption of Iran’s leadership has been fueled by the benefits of the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration.
“The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime,” he said in an early morning tweet. “All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their ‘pockets,’ ” he added, apparently referring to the Iranian funds that were freed up when Iran agreed to constraints on its nuclear program.
But Trump’s invocation of Obama and the nuclear deal muddies his message, analysts said, by turning the spotlight away from the Iranian government’s economic failures — which have given rise to this powerful if inchoate protest movement — to the lingering debate in Washington over the nuclear agreement.
Trump never fully resolved that debate himself. In October, he refused to certify the deal, but he left it to Congress to legislate changes to it. Lawmakers have made little progress and European leaders have refused to revisit it. Between Jan. 11 and Jan. 17, Trump faces fresh deadlines on whether to recertify the deal and to continue to waive sanctions.
“He was going to be put on the spot, anyway, explaining why he was keeping the deal alive without these improvements,” said Philip H. Gordon, a senior National Security Council official in the Obama administration. “If the Iranians are killing people in the streets when it comes time for Trump to extend the sanctions waivers, it is hard to see him doing it.”
Yet killing the deal, Gordon said, could enable the Iranian government to galvanize domestic support against the U.S. rather than face questions about why it has not been able to improve Iran’s economy. “Right now, they cannot blame us or the international sanctions,” he said. “This could allow them to make the U.S. the enemy.”
Even critics of the deal said they worried that the protests would tempt Trump to abandon it rather than try to improve it.
“If there is a bipartisan bill that is ready for congressional action, that would go a long way toward persuading the president to issue the waivers,” said Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “If there’s not, what’s happening in Iran will give the president all the more reason to say, ‘I’ve had it with this deal.’ ”
Despite their fears about the fate of the deal, some Obama officials endorsed Trump’s vocal support for the protesters, favorably comparing it to Obama’s muted response when thousands of Iranians took to the streets in June 2009 after a rigged presidential election. Obama withheld criticism, in part, because dissidents warned them that Tehran would use that endorsement to discredit the movement.
With hindsight, some say, that was a mistake because the protesters deserved the United States’ public backing, and the Iranian government would have labeled them foreign stooges either way. Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, has described it as one of her greatest regrets from that period.
“For a lot of us who were in the administration, there is some regret,” said Daniel B. Shapiro, a former senior National Security Council official and ambassador to Israel. “At that moment, it would have been desirable to be more outspoken on behalf of the rights of the Iranian people.”