Trump thinks the North Korea blueprint will work with Iran. He's dangerously wrong

The people who will end up getting hurt are the pro-democracy Iranian activists, and I know because they told me themselves

Over the past week, I have spoken to Iranian men and women who are critical of the Islamic Republic, who have been working toward a free and democratic Iran, and who have paid a high piece for their activism, including detention, forced migration and exile. They have told me a lot of things, but one opinion unites them all: war with the US would be a disaster for political reform and democracy in their country.

A military conflict with the world’s strongest army will put hawkish Commanders in charge in Iran. It will give them enough power to crack down on what is left of a domestic political opposition. A grave existential threat to the Islamic Republic will encourage its most paranoid elements to further securitize the social and political sphere and wrap up all internal dissent.

Political activists told me that a military conflict will not only be cataclysmic for the ordinary people of the country, it will also help strengthen the most hardline factions of Iran’s political establishment. Such changes will severely harm various rights movements in Iran, including those organized by women and minorities, students and laborers. Activists remember that, during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the government characterized nearly all internal dissent as a conspiracy organized by the external enemy, and crushed it.

Now Iranian activists want the two governments to use diplomacy to resolve the current standoff and prevent a potential war. Hossein Nooraninejad, former political prisoner and current spokesman of People’s Union, the largest reformist party in Iran, told me: “Every diplomatic tool, negotiation, lobbying, intermediaries and public diplomacy must be utilized to restore calm between the two countries.” He says Iranians are critical of the Trump administration for leaving the nuclear deal, but also criticize their own government for having confrontational policies towards the US even under Clinton and Obama, when there was an opportunity for better relations.

Economic sanctions have also been harmful to political reform in Iran. The current sanctions are very broad and target the entire Iranian economy, including the energy, banking, and financial sectors and every major industry. Combined with internal mismanagement and corruption, sanctions have devastated an already weak economy, increased inflation, and devalued the currency. The main victims of sanctions are members of the working and middle classes. Prices of basic staples have gone up dramatically and certain life-saving medicine and medical devices have become expensive and scarce. But a weak economy also harms civil society in Iran. Activists say when people have to worry about bread, they forget the fight for freedom.

Those I interviewed supported the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, and still want Iran to engage more and better with the West. Although President Trump unilaterally pulled out of the deal last year, and diplomatic channels between Iran and the United States have rusted, Trump has also claimed he wants to negotiate with Iranian leaders. Activists see that as a rare window of opportunity. Nariman Mostafavi, Research Scientist at Drexel University in Pennsylvania and a former political prisoner in Iran, believes that in order to resolve tensions between Iran and the United States, the hardliners on both sides need to talk to each other. He told me: “Now is the right time for that to happen. The Iranian side always negotiates with their mandates already approved by the Supreme Leader. But someone like Obama, on the other hand, never had the support of US hawks; in fact they were all against him. So now Trump’s willingness to negotiate is a golden opportunity for Iran. And the Democrats will definitely not criticize him for starting dialogue.”

Different groups of Iranians have been protesting against the government for nearly two years in many cities across the country. They want jobs, living wages, and social justice. Iranian women, students, laborers, and other minority groups have been pushing back against government policies, demanding political and social freedoms. It’s clear that the key for the Islamic Republic to get out of the current crisis is inside the country. The government needs to listen to its own people and respond to their legitimate political, economic and social grievances. It needs to uphold civil and human rights at home to strengthen its position abroad.

Ultimately the only way out of this impasse is diplomacy. And both sides — Iran and the United States — need to try to make that happen.

Reyhaneh Tabatabaie, a journalist and former political prisoner who lives in Tehran, thinks Iran is stuck in this situation and must try to negotiate with the United States. She told me: “Iranian officials are right to distrust the Trump administration because we stayed committed to the deal and he violated it. But we now need to use a comprehensive and public diplomacy to resolve this crisis. Negotiations are not always with friends. We must negotiate with enemies. We sit at the table and try, and if it doesn’t work, that’s fine. We say farewell and leave the table."

Donald Trump has long called the Iran nuclear deal the worst deal ever and claimed that he can negotiate a much better deal. He also campaigned against endless wars in the Middle East and repeatedly criticized his predecessors for starting them. It has now been one year since he exited the nuclear deal and started a maximum pressure campaign on Iran. He has re-imposed crippling sanctions and launched a war of words. He has put his foreign policy in the hands of hawkish advisers who have long promoted war and Iranian regime change. But his strategy doesn’t seem to be working. There is no prospect for a better deal — or any deal at all — with the country, and the United States keeps inching closer to a new military conflict in the Middle East that nobody wants.

It is time for President Trump to end the saber-rattling and try a new approach. If war and regime change are not his ultimate goals, he must make that clear in his actions and not just words.

The North Korea blueprint will not work with Iran. Iranian leaders are very different from Kim Jung-un. They are not looking for public approval from the President of the United States and are not after photo-ops on the world stage. If this strategy backfires — which it is likely to do — then a military conflict could become inevitable, and have severe consequences for the liberal, pro-democracy sections of Iranian civil society for years to come.

Negar Mortavazi is an Iranian American journalism and consultant editor at the Independent