The news arrives from Whitehall with the faint, fusty odour of classified briefing papers: intelligence sources reveal that Donald Trump’s approach to Iran represents a radical departure from Barack Obama’s, one that would have made John Buchan’s Hannay feel at home in the corridors of power. Where Obama sought the gentleman’s agreement, the calibrated smile, the Nobel Peace Prize glow of multilateralism, Trump opted for the mailed fist and the unambiguous ultimatum. The question is not merely one of style, but of substance, of historical precedent, of whether we are witnessing a strategic revolution or a dangerous bout of imperial nostalgia.
Obama, the constitutional law professor, believed in the softening power of diplomacy. His Iran deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was a masterpiece of internationalist architecture: sanctions relief in exchange for nuclear restrictions, a delicate balance of incentives and verification. It was the Vienna Congress reborn, a system of mutual concessions designed to bring Persia into the community of civilised nations. But like the Congress system, it rested on the assumption that the other side shared our vocabulary. The mullahs did not. They saw the deal not as an end to hostilities, but as a breathing space, a pause in their march towards the bomb and regional hegemony.
Trump, by contrast, read the script of the 1930s. He tore up the JCPOA with the contempt of a man who knew that appeasement does not satisfy the predator, it merely whets its appetite. He reimposed crippling sanctions, assassinated Qasem Soleimani with a drone strike that echoed the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, and embraced the Abraham Accords to isolate Iran. This was not diplomacy; it was a blunt ideological declaration that the United States would no longer pretend that the Islamic Republic was a normal state. It was Churchill versus Chamberlain, the bulldog versus the umbrella.
The intelligence sources highlight a crucial operational difference: Obama’s team fed Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a steady diet of back channels and quiet concessions, hoping to temper their behaviour. Trump’s team, fed by the same intelligence, realised that the Guards see concession as weakness, a sign that the West is in terminal decline. The result is a shift from containment to confrontation, from the velvet glove to the iron fist. Whether this is wise is another matter. The historian in me notes that the fall of the Shah followed a period of uncompromising American pressure. The Victorian in me recognises that empires that do not back up their threats with resolve invite ruin.
Yet the raw data is clear: under Trump, Iran’s nuclear programme was set back, its proxies in Yemen and Syria lost momentum, and its economy staggered. Under Obama, Iran advanced, enriched uranium, and tested ballistic missiles with impunity. The difference is not subtle. It is the difference between a man who believes in the perfectibility of nations through dialogue and a man who believes in the reality of power. Call it the Churchillian gambit. The question now is whether Biden, who promises a return to the Obama playbook, understands that the board has changed. The mullahs have learned that Americans can be ruthless; they will not soon forget Soleimani’s fate. If Biden thinks he can simply reopen negotiations with a smile and a sanctions waiver, he has not read his own intelligence reports.
The lesson of history is that regimes like Iran’s respect only two things: fear and interest. Obama offered interest without fear. Trump offered fear without much interest in long-term engagement. The synthesis, the true British approach of combining deterrence with diplomacy, remains elusive. But as we watch the waning of American power, the rise of China, and the chaos of the Middle East, we must ask ourselves: which model will endure? The answer, I suspect, will be written not in red lines but in blood.
