Why playing the ‘long game’ is the right approach to Iran’s protests

It is hard to watch the protests unfolding in Iran over the last month and not feel moved to action. Seeing tens of thousands of brave young Iranians seeking dignity and autonomy strikes a special chord with publics that take dignity and autonomy for granted. The proximate cause of the protests — a woman apparently beaten to death for being insufficiently modestly dressed — is so transparently horrific as to shock the conscience. 

And yet, the Biden administration’s apparent circumspection toward the protests is the correct policy course. While the approach is neither emotionally nor politically satisfying, the alternatives would do the protestors no favors and potentially put Iran on an even more destructive course. 

One way to see the current moment is that when your adversary is digging himself a hole, don’t interrupt. 

None of this is to deny either the courage or the virtue of Iranians who have taken to the streets. Their outrage is piled upon frustration that has been building for years: The economy is anemic, jobs are scarce, public services are spotty. Iran’s “resistance economy” has enriched a corrupt few while impoverishing tens of millions; inequality in education, wealth and jobs is on full display. Unlike its neighbors, Iran has enjoyed no oil boom; likewise, its natural gas is largely underexploited. Irrigation water is increasingly scarce. The Iranian government’s actions inside and outside the country have made many Iranians desperate. One can see the current protests as the product of a long slide in Iran’s standard of living. 

As protest movements, go, however, this one has shallow roots. There are few leaders, and there is little organization. Institutions have not lined up behind the protestors, nor are they guiding them. Protesters lack a shared agenda. There is no sign of a crack in the leadership or in the state’s coercive institutions. It is as if the protests are voting “no” in a referendum on the current government, but that does little to usher in a replacement government.  

These protests are very different, then, from the protests that toppled the shah in 1979, or even Iran’s “Green Movement” of 2009. They are more akin to some of the Arab Spring revolts of 2011. While the latter protests brought down governments, most Arabs in affected countries would dispute that they now are better off. Wars still raging inside Syria, Libya and Yemen more than a decade after those protests began gives further pause. 

It makes sense, then, for the United States to play the long game.

The first element of doing so is recognizing that the best-intentioned foreigners can’t trump the patriotism of local governments, even of repressive ones. Iranians must feel they are the agents of their own fate. They live with the consequences of their actions, as even the most zealous foreigner does not. Understanding how limited U.S. opportunities are is the first step to exploiting those that exist. 

The second element is expanding broad technical assistance for Iranians to communicate freely, within and outside the country. The Iranian government has done an unusually effective job of controlling the country’s domestic internet, but VPNs and other workarounds can help free Iranians from censorship and surveillance. The Biden administration has not only loosened sanctions on communications technology intended for Iranian citizens, but it has met with technology companies and non-governmental organizations to ensure that they understand just how much they can do without running afoul of U.S. law. Finding workarounds for Iranian subscriptions to various services in ways that circumvent economic sanctions on the country and protect subscribers from governmental persecution is an area where U.S. officials should do more work. 

The third element is a steady campaign of calling out Iranian government abuses and helping to document those abuses when they occur. The world should not forget what is happening in Iran, and when the dust settles in Iran, Iranians should sort out accountability. 

While there is an inexorable call for additional sanctions on Iran and on those carrying out abuses, they don’t have much impact. Iranian officials have been navigating sanctions for four decades. What they really want, they have workarounds to get, and otherwise they do without. It is hard to imagine any senior Iranian official who would make any decision differently to avoid being sanctioned. Sanctions have their place, but the danger of a weekly drumbeat of new sanctions is that it gives the illusion of policy progress when little is occurring. 

Calls to pull out of nuclear negotiations to protest Iranian actions are also off-base — as it would also be wrong to soft-pedal disgust at Iranian action in order to improve the climate for those negotiations. It is in the U.S. interest to negotiate and condemn simultaneously. The nuclear agreement is being pursued to advance U.S. interests, not Iranian ones. Nuclear concerns are likely to persist for many years, just as human rights concerns are likely to persist, too. Each should be pursued on separate tracks. 

There is a persistent desire in the United States to “fix” Iran. That desire is just as likely to remain unfulfilled in the next decade as it has for the last four. Not having a solution does not mean there is nothing to do, though. But current conditions call for a measured response and measured expectations.

Jon B. Alterman is senior vice president, Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank focusing on defense, national security and international relations issues.