1. Course number: MLMLA 6393: Current Issues on U.S. Foreign Policy
Student: Syeda Rizvi
Adj. Professor Armando Armendariz, JD
Semester: Summer I, 2013
Final Exam
United States Foreign Policy with Iran 2012-2013
What is the physical and human geography of Iran like?
Physically, Iran consists of a complex of mountain chains enclosing a series of interior
basins that lie at altitudes of 1,000 to 4,000 feet above sea-level. These mountain ranges rise
steeply from sea-level on the North and on the south, and equally abruptly from the very flat and
extremely low-lying plain of Mesopotamia to the west. Eastward, and also in the extreme north-
west, the highlands extend beyond Iran in the form of largely continuous and uninterrupted
features: in the first area they are prolonged as the massifs of Afghanistan and Baluchistan (West
Pakistan), and in the north-west as the plate uplands of Russian Azerbaijan and eastern Asia
Minor.
What have US-Iranian relations been like historically?
The history between the U.S. and Iran is a continuous source of conflict with the potential
to explode into a more severe conflict with global consequences.
- Iranian Hostage Crisis On November 4, 1979,: a group of Iranian students stormed the
American Embassy in Tehran and took 63 American Embassy personnel hostage. The specific
grievance of the students (the hostage takers) focused on the Shah and his relationship with the
U.S. In October 1979,

2. - Beyond the Hostage Crisis: Within a day of Reagan taking the oath of presidency, the hostages
were released and returned stateside. However, during President Reagan's administration, there
was little to no improvement in U.S.-Iran relations. In 1983, Hezbollah conducted a series of
anti-American terrorist attacks, and in 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that Iran
supported the terrorist organization. The Iran-Contra scandal followed the Hezbollah attacks.
During the Iran-Contra scandal, the U.S. illegally sold weapons to Iran and used the profits to
support the Contras in Nicaragua.
Thawing Relations: The election of reformist Mohammad Khatami in 1997 brought a sense of
optimism for U.S.-Iran relations. Throughout his campaign and post-election, Khatami expressed
that he wanted to improve Iranian relations with the U.S. In his first major campaign speech,
Khatami suggested that if the U.S. changed its bad behavior, the U.S. and Iran could have normal
relations.[vi] This was a major shift from the past leadership of Khomeini who believed that Iran
and the U.S. could never have normal relations.
Axis of Evil : There have been no improvements in U.S.-Iran relations during the Bush
Administration. In his State of the Union Address in 2002, President Bush labeled Iran as part of
the ‘Axis of Evil,' outraging the Iranian leadership. Iran responded with a public statement: "the
Islamic Republic is proud to be a target of the hate and anger of the world's greatest evil; we
never seek to be praised by American officials."
Implications of U.S.-Iran Relations

3. ← U.S.-Iran relations are linked to the energy interests and security of the
international community. Over 20 percent of world oil supply is transported daily through
the Strait. If already tense relations were to escalate between the U.S. and Iran, Iran could
retaliate by attempting to close or disrupt traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. This, in turn,
may result in an armed confrontation between the U.S. and Iran, which undoubtedly
involve the Middle East region as a whole.
What is nuclear proliferation?
Nuclear proliferation is the increasing worldwide availability of nuclear weapons, nuclear
knowledge, and nuclear materials such as enriched uranium or plutonium. It has long been a
stated concern of politicians and nuclear arms control advocates, though the actual effort devoted
to such goals has varied. Nuclear weapons technology was first developed by the Manhattan
Project of the United States in July 1945.
The controversy surrounding Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology.
Iran’s nuclear weapons program was part of a broader attempt to become more self-
reliant in arms and technology in the 1980s. Increasingly isolated, Tehran struggled to acquire
arms to fight Iraq, which used chemical weapons and had a nuclear weapons program. The eight-
year war was the Middle East’s bloodiest modern conflict. Iran’s nuclear program was an
outgrowth of this experience.
Ways in which the United States has applied its diplomatic, economic, and military tools to
the current situation with Iran:
1. Permanently stopping all open and safeguarded enrichment in Iran

4. 2. Maximizing U.S. security so that Iran is locked in to a system of comprehensive safeguards
and surveillance nationwide.
3. Giving diplomacy time to be effective.
4. Promoting democracy and freedom in Iran effectively – through self-restraint.
4. Open a dialog to pursue common interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.
5. Convincing Israel that restraint is in its interest and reenergizing the Arab-Israeli peace
process.
The Uncertain Result: Giving Diplomacy Near Term Priority But Building New Levels of
Containment, Deterrence, and Security
Sanctions and diplomacy are the best of a bad (or at least highly uncertain) set of options,
but it is far from clear that they will stop Iran‘s progress toward a nuclear weapons capability.
The lack of diplomatic progress, and the appearance that the Iranians are stalling for time,
negotiations may still be successful. Successful negotiations might also bring about long-term
changes in the US-Iranian relationship.
Pressuring Iran to halt its nuclear program was again the top U.S. diplomatic concern,
and U.S.-inspired economic sanctions imposed by Western allies on the Iranian regime continued
to weaken the country’s oil exports, currency, and economy. The measures failed to produce
negotiation breakthroughs during 2012, however, much to the dismay of the Israeli government,
which had applied pressure for an allied (or unilateral) military strike on Iran’s nuclear
capability. U.S.-Israeli relations were strained throughout the year. While restraining Israel,
Washington also quietly negotiated with Persian Gulf allies to cooperate on a missile-defense
system to counter any future Iranian threat. The standoff produced competing cyberattacks,
including penetration of Iranian official computers by a mysterious data-mining virus named

5. Flame, countered by a wave of cyberattacks on U.S. banks and allied energy firms attributed to
Iranian hackers.
Four key aspects of US and Iranian strategic competition - sanctions, energy, arms
control, and regime change. Its primary focus is on the ways in which the sanctions applied to
Iran have changed US and Iranian competition since the fall of 2011. This escalation has been
spurred by the creation of a series of far stronger US unilateral sanctions and the EU‘s imposition
of equally strong sanctions – both of which affect Iran‘s ability to export, its financial system and
its overall economy.
The US has instituted four major acts sanctioning Iran, impacting hundreds of companies,
people, and assets. These include: The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and
Divestment Act of 2010 (signed July 1, 2010), FY 2012 NDAA (signed December 31, 2011),
Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 (signed August 10, 2012), and FY
2013 NDAA (signed January 2, 2013), They have cut off Iran from the international banking
system; declared the entire Iranian banking sector as money laundering entities; increased the
number of sanctions the president is to impose; targeted Iran‘s petrochemical industry, the CBI,
the financial sector, and transportation infrastructure; and forced countries to curtail their
purchases of Iranian oil in the face of sanctions.
To what extent have the above points been successful in U.S. ForeignPolicy with Iran?
After many years of mutual hostility, no one should expect that engaging Iran will be
easy. It certainly won't be quick. The recent crackdown will make it much more difficult, and
perhaps impossible. But past policies based on threats and sanctions clearly have not worked.
Diplomacy, even under the present circumstances, has a much greater chance of success.

6. Much now depends on how the US and EU sanctions effort is handled in the future. The
Obama Administration and Congress are steadily tightening sanctions, but it is doing so carefully
and in ways that focus on multilateral, rather than unilateral US action. Additional sanctions will
be pursued gradually and in ways that maximize multilateral buy-in. The Iranian financial, oil,
transportation, and petrochemical sectors will continue to be isolated to the extent possible. And
the Administration will attempt to inform and empower population centers within Iran through
channels such as the State Department‘s ―Virtual Embassy program, in hopes that an‖
opposition movement will again challenge the regime
Bibliography
"United States: Year In Review 2012." Britannica Book of the Year, . Encyclopedia Britannica
Online Academic Edition. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 01 June 2013.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1886096/United-States-Year-In-Review-2012>.

7. United States: Year In Review 2012. (2013). In Britannica Book of the Year, . Retrieved from
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1886096/United-States-Year-In-Review-2012
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http://americanforeignpolicy.org retrieved 06/01/2013