Mick Hartley

What with Taiwan and all, now seems to be the time – before the ghastly reality kicks in next year – when all sorts of optimistic scenarios for Trump's presidency can be aired. After all, Reagan was ridiculed at first, and he oversaw the end of the Soviet Union. Maybe Trump's going to surprise everyone and mark the end of China's increasingly belligerent and authoritarian rise to world dominance which we we've all been told is now inevitable.

Then there's Iran. Obama's policy of rapprochement has been a disaster. Will Trump turn it around? Here's Ray Takeyh at Politico:

[T]he Islamic Republic is not interested in normalizing relations with the United States. For the past four decades, American presidents have hoped that offers of dialogue and the possibility of resumed relations would entice Iran into moderation. Carter wanted to settle the hostage crisis in a manner that did not foreclose the possibility of reestablishing relations with Iran. Reagan’s envoy Robert McFarlane arrived in Tehran in 1985 hoping to discuss ways of improving relations. Obama has often spoken of putting the contentious history of the two nations behind and moving to a better future with Iran. The point that many White Houses have missed is that the Islamic Republic is a revolutionary state whose entire identity is invested in its hostility toward the West. For the clerical rulers, resumed relations with America is itself an existential threat.

So what does all this mean for Donald Trump? The Trump administration would be wise to craft an actual Iran policy and not just a series of arms control proposals like those that obsessed its two predecessors. The essence of such a policy would be to weaken Iran as opposed to seeking ways of empowering its so-called moderate factions. In today’s Islamic Republic, there are no pragmatists waiting to mend fences with Washington….

To paraphrase Dean Acheson on the Soviet Union, the Islamic Republic should be thought of as an old-fashion penny slot machine—we may get something out of it by shaking it but there is no point [in] talking nicely to it.