Since the 1979 storming of the embassy and seizure of American diplomats in Tehran, the United States has imposed wave after wave of sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran. Over time, the sanctions have grown from Executive orders aimed at Iranian support for terrorism into a far more comprehensive congressional and international regime that focuses on Iran’s nuclear program. As negotiations over this program continue, legal analysis of non-proliferation agreements, sanctions law and the respective foreign policy powers of Congress and the President have become inextricably linked to the diplomatic initiative with the Islamic Republic.
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The memo provides the legal rationale behind the controversial January 2, 2020, drone strike that killed Major General Qassem Soleimani of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and several leaders of the militia Kata’ib Hezbollah while in Baghdad, Iraq.
The terrorist attack on the Khobar Towers was the bloodiest attack on America between the Beirut Marine barracks disaster in 1983 and September 11, 2001. Its legacy still haunts Washington’s relations with Iran. I watched the drama up close.
In its efforts to enforce economic sanctions against Iran and Venezuela, the United States is straining the boundaries of traditionally accepted state behavior in some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. It is walking a tightrope.
To the extent that Iran targets U.S. audiences in sustained disinformation campaigns, it still typically aims to broadly promote Iranian interests rather than attempting to induce a specific result in American domestic affairs.
This Thursday, Dec. 10, at noon EST, Suzanne Maloney, the vice president and director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution, and Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson will join Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes to answer questions from the Lawfare community about the challenges facing U.S.-Iranian relations during the transition period from the Trump to the Biden administration.
The two countries are reportedly concluding a new partnership agreement, but cooperation between Tehran and Beijing will face obstacles.
Despite the optics of a recent resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Europe continues to oppose the U.S. policy line on Iran.
The international community’s will to deliver medical supplies to Iran despite potential penalties from the U.S. government demonstrates a challenge to the U.S. “maximum pressure” campaign.
The aggressive U.S. strategy has raised tensions in Iraq without creating prospects for a resolution.
Speaking at Brigham Young University, Defense Department General Counsel Paul Nye offered the most-detailed defense we have yet seen of the Soleimani airstrike, addressing both international and domestic law as well as the underlying facts.