{
"authors": [
"Jarrett Blanc"
],
"type": "legacyinthemedia",
"centerAffiliationAll": "dc",
"centers": [
"Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center"
],
"collections": [
"Iranian Proliferation"
],
"englishNewsletterAll": "americanStatecraft",
"nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
"primaryCenter": "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"programAffiliation": "ASP",
"programs": [
"American Statecraft"
],
"projects": [],
"regions": [
"North America",
"United States",
"Middle East",
"Iran"
],
"topics": [
"Political Reform",
"Security",
"Foreign Policy",
"Nuclear Policy"
]
}
Source: Getty
The messages Trump is sending make negotiations with Tehran less and less likely and increase the chance of another ruinous war of choice in the Middle East.
Source: Politico
The Trump administration’s announcement this week of plans to impose new sanctions targeting Iranian leaders and organizations—including the Supreme Leader and his office, military commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif—will have little practical effect, according to sanctions experts. Senior Iranian officials and their organizations are very unlikely to use international financial institutions or hold substantial assets abroad, and those are the major pathways through which the United States exerts coercive economic pressure. In other words, the new sanctions are more symbolic than effective.
This is not a bad thing. Symbolism is useful in international affairs, especially between adversarial countries like Iran and the United States, which lack formal diplomatic relations and need to find other ways to communicate. Intermediaries can be one option, symbolic measures another.
The problem with these new sanctions is not that they are symbolic, but that the messages they convey to Iran and the rest of the world are foolish and dangerous, and will fail to advance U.S. interests.
Here are three messages the Trump administration sent to Iran this week...
Jarrett Blanc
Former Senior Fellow, Geoeconomics and Strategy Program
Jarrett Blanc was a senior fellow in the Geoeconomics and Strategy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Carnegie India does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
A partnership between India, a country of subcontinental size, and Africa, a continent of fifty-four countries, may seem asymmetric until one notes that both are home to nearly the same number of people—1.4 billion. This essay spells out the existing challenges to the partnership, its optimal potential, and the possible pathways to realize it over the next quarter-century.
Rajiv Bhatia
The U.S.–India semiconductor cooperation story is well-stocked with top-level strategic intent. What remains unresolved, however, are some underlying challenges that will determine whether the cooperation actually functions. Three such friction points stand out.
Shruti Mittal
The India–EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is shaping up to be one of the most consequential trade negotiations, both economically and strategically. But, what’s in the agreement, what’s missing, and what will determine its success in the years ahead
Vrinda Sahai, Nicolas Köhler-Suzuki
This piece argues that the present Indian strategy, based on opportunistic diversification and utilization of limited strategic reserves, remains inadequate when confronting supply disruptions. It evaluates India’s options in the short, medium, and long terms.
Vrinda Sahai
Trump 2.0 has unsettled India’s external environment—but has not overturned its foreign policy strategy, which continues to rely on diversification, hedging, and calibrated partnerships across a fractured order.
Milan Vaishnav, ed., Sameer Lalwani, Tanvi Madan, …