The Carrot or the Stick: Assessing U.S. Policy Approaches Toward the Iranian Nuclear Program
Iran's nuclear program has been a source of disagreement between the United States and Iran for decades, but efforts to resolve the conflict have been hard fought and often short lived. The Biden administration has pledged to once again take on the diplomatic challenge of curtailing or even reversing Iran's contested nuclear program, initially suggesting a return to the JCPOA, but more recently favoring a combination of pressure and diplomacy. This talk discusses both the prospects and risks of different engagement approaches, asking which present the best chances of success, and under what conditions they are most likely to achieve their goals. While no policy is guaranteed to succeed and each can pose downside risks, the United States historically and the Biden administration most recently have remained committed to finding a sustainable solution to diplomacy with Iran. This presentation will trace different U.S. policy approaches used in the past two decades, from coercive pressure to cooperation-oriented strategies. We will consider these policies in the context of the domestic conditions in Iran and the United States, as well as discuss how international and regional conditions may complicate the effort to design a successful policy.
Ariel Petrovics research examines the effectiveness of foreign policy strategies on issues of international security. Her book project compares foreign policy effectiveness for inducing nuclear reversal, while related research evaluates the risk of counterproductive consequences, engagement strategies with renegade regimes, and the effects of new proliferators on international security. Her work has been published for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and Texas National Security Review, among others. She earned her PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Davis and has held positions as a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow, the IGCC Herbert York Fellow, and a research associate at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Center for Global Security Research. Her work has been supported by the Stanton Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation.
