"Just ask Abbas Milani. The director of Stanford University’s Iran studies program cannot be called a squish when it comes to Iran; he has devoted much of his scholarship to the regime’s struggle against modernity and to understanding the country’s democracy movement. As Milani told a small group of reporters this week in Washington, he believes the best U.S. policy today is to encourage a democratic transition.
One might think Milani would appreciate the Trump administration’s approach to Iran, sometimes known as maximum pressure. After all, the Trump administration has re-imposed crippling sanctions on the regime and taken a public diplomacy line at times that highlights the corruption of Iran’s rulers and the plight of its people.
But Milani is no fan of maximum pressure. He says it undermines Iran’s democracy movement and strengthens Iran’s ties with Russia and China.
On this second point, Milani pointed to this week’s announcement that Iran and Russia would be conducting joint military exercises in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Milani said that even a few years ago this would have been unthinkable. In 2016, when it leaked out that Russian planes were flying missions for Syria from a base in Iran, the regime was embarrassed and disavowed the story. Iran’s constitution bars foreign forces on its soil.
More important though, Milani sees a danger that U.S. efforts to punish nations and banks that do business with Iran have given a discredited regime a useful foil. “The sanctions have exacerbated but not created Iran’s economic crisis,” he said. “They have also given the regime an excuse to say all of this is because of the sanctions.”
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