As activists call on Biden to openly back regime change in Iran, the president is charting a middle path instead — one that supports Iranian protestors, but doesn't isolate Iran’s government or abandon nuclear talks with the regime.
The administration unwilling to listen to some activists’ demands that it walk away from its longstanding goal of restoring the Iran nuclear deal. | Jose Luis Magana/AP PhotoPresident Joe Biden faces growing calls from activists and even a former crown prince to openly back regime change in Iran as the country’s Islamist rulers face a wave of protests.
The U.S. officials said they must factor in everything from the human rights demands of Iran’s protesters — many of them young and female — to the U.S. preference for using diplomacy to keep Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Iran’s decision to sell drones and other weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine also is complicating the picture.
The U.S. officials POLITICO interviewed hold a variety of positions in the administration. They all spoke on condition of anonymity in part because of the sensitivity of the topic.following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She is suspected of having been beaten after she was taken into custody by Iran’s morality police, who reportedly accused her of not properly wearing a headscarf.
Pahlavi, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area and says he supports a secular democracy in Iran, has called for the international community and the United States toThe Biden administration, however, says that would be a step too far. U.S. officials don’t even like to talk about the idea of such a policy stance, even though they say they’d love to see the regime collapse.Some U.S.
“We could be using our cyber capabilities in a much more profound way,” Dubowitz added, while noting that secrecy rules make it hard to know what the U.S. is doing on that front. “We could be going after their command-and-control systems … their surveillance systems.” To a degree, concern about avoiding making the protests about the United States still shapes some of the Biden administration’s thinking, the U.S. officials said. But it has nonetheless swiftly taken other steps to help the protesters. They include imposing economic sanctions on some regime officials and relaxing some rules so that protesters can access communications tools to better organize.pushing Iran off of a U.N.