In the Midterm Assessment by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), FDD experts analyze the Trump administration’s policies in more than 20 key issue areas related to foreign policy and national security, ranging from Hezbollah to cyber security.

Mark Dubowitz spearheaded the assessment on policies related to the Islamic Republic of Iran, beginning with an overview of the Trump administration’s current policies.

The following is an excerpt:

“For almost two years, before President Trump ordered the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria in December 2018, the Trump administration pursued an Iran policy based on the use of all instruments of national power to stop Tehran from engaging in a wide array of aggressive and malign behaviors that defy global norms. In his May 21, 2018 speech, “A New Iran Strategy,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Iran to end verifiably its nuclear weapons and advanced ballistic missile programs, cease its support for terrorism and the destabilization of foreign governments, release all hostages, and halt its aggression against Israel and other U.S. allies. To achieve these objectives, the administration designed a strategy to pressure the regime – diplomatically, economically, and militarily. To that end, the administration walked away from the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and reinstated the comprehensive sanctions that had forced Iran to the negotiating table in 2013.”

[…]

“The Trump administration’s strategy came down to putting the regime in Tehran to a stark choice between a fundamental change in its behavior and an unrelenting pressure campaign to severely weaken the Islamic Republic. However, Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops from Syria raises serious doubts about the president’s commitment to pressuring Iran on every front.”

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) released its midterm assessment of the Trump administration’s foreign and national security policies with analysis by more than 20 FDD experts on over 20 key issue areas.

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) H.R. McMaster, the Chairman of FDD’s new Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP) that Mark Dubowitz co-founded, wrote the foreword to the report.

The following is an excerpt:

“In this Midterm Assessment, FDD experts and scholars evaluate the Trump administration’s efforts to advance and protect U.S. vital interests. The assessment spans the broad range of threats and challenges to national security and prosperity that our nation faces. Those threats and challenges include revisionist powers, hostile states, and transnational terrorist organizations. And the essays also consider new domains in which these threats operate (such as cyberspace) as well as increasing dangers associated with the potential breakdown of the nuclear nonproliferation regime and the prospect of hostile states and non-state actors gaining access to some of the most destructive weapons on earth. This assessment deserves wide attention because the stakes are high. And it deserves attention because the authors have transcended the vitriolic and shallow partisan discourse that dominates much of what passes for commentary on foreign policy and national security.”

Even the Losers

The following is an excerpt:

Each Christmas for the past 15 years, I’ve returned to the city of my childhood, Toronto. It feels like the same city of immigrants united by their ethnic food, entrepreneurship, and gratitude for Canada’s polite and tolerant embrace. But this time is different. The Maple Leafs are winning. There’s even hope that this may be the year they win their first championship since 1967, the year before I was born to a rugby-loving family in South Africa.

Read Mark’s op-ed for The Washington Examiner here.

Trump Delivers a Victory to Iran

The president’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria has ruined the administration’s efforts to contain the Islamic republic.

The following is an excerpt:

Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, concurrently with his intention to drastically reduce the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan and the likely soon-to-be-announced further drawdown of U.S. personnel in Iraq, has made mincemeat of the administration’s efforts to contain Iran. If you add up who wins locally by this decision (the clerical regime in Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite radicals, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan) and who loses (Jordan, Israel, the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds and Sunni Arabs, everyone in Lebanon resisting Hezbollah, the vast majority of the Iraqi Shia, the Gulf States), it becomes clear that the interests of the United States have been routed.

Before Trump pulled the plug in Syria, the rhetorical center of the president’s Iran policy was the “New Iran Strategy” speech by Pompeo at the Heritage Foundation on May 21, 2018. The 12 demands that Pompeo issued to Tehran are not historically provocative—they were, until the coming of Obama, essentially what the United States had always sought: to deny the mullahs nuclear weapons and stop them from spreading their version of Islamic militancy. Washington hadn’t been brilliantly successful in countering Tehran and only occasionally efficient in bringing real pain to the mullahs and their praetorians, the Revolutionary Guards, who are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers since they first drew blood in Lebanon in 1983. But Pompeo, by redrawing the lines, clearly signaled that the United States wasn’t giving up, that a campaign of “maximum pressure” was still coming. It is clear now, however, that the secretary’s speech was a bridge too far for Trump, who may never have read it.

Read Mark’s op-ed for The Atlantic, co-authored by Reuel Marc Gerecht, here.

New U.S. Sanctions Omit Key Firms Linked to Iran’s Armed Forces

The following is an excerpt:

The United States on Monday sanctioned more than 700 Iranian entities and individuals for enabling Tehran’s malign conduct, but it omitted half of the publicly listed firms under the principal control of the regime’s security forces. Listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), these lucrative companies play a major role in financing Iran’s regional aggression and domestic repression.

The Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran owns more than 50 percent of the shares – or controls more than 50 percent of the seats on the boards of directors – of 22 TSE-listed companies. These firms encompass a variety of industries, including finance, energy, construction, automotive, and telecommunications, among others. Eleven of the 22 companies fall under the Armed Forces’ general jurisdiction; the IRGC, in particular, controls the rest.

The Armed Forces includes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime’s praetorians; the Law Enforcement Force (LEF) of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the state police; the Basij, or religious police; the Artesh, or conventional military; the General Staff of the Armed Forces; and the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODAFL). Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, directly appoints the heads of all of them except the MODAFL. The United States had already designated the IRGC, the LEF, the Basij, and the MODAFL prior to Monday’s sanctions.

On Monday, Washington sanctioned six companies under the Armed Forces’ general jurisdiction. Treasury had sanctioned two of those six – Ghadir Investment and Parsian Oil and Gas – before the finalization of the 2015 nuclear deal, which led to their delisting. Treasury had not previously sanctioned the other four – Motogen, Sepahan Cement, Shargh Cement, and Kurdistan Cement.

Treasury has yet to sanction the remaining five, which they should do in light of their ties to other firms that Treasury designated on Monday.

Read the complete policy brief by Mark and Saeed Ghasseminejad on FDD’s website here.