The US policy of containing Iran – from Obama to Trump 2009–2018

ABSTRACT

This study provides an in–depth analysis of the US-Iran policy during the period 2009–2018. It discusses a variety of factors and variables that determined overall US Iran policy during Obama and Trump administrations. Moreover, this study provides a deep analysis of the American long designed objectives concerning Iran and the tactics that were employed to achieve the outlined goals. Remarkably, the diffuse array of challenges and obstacles that besiege US–Iran relations are deep-rooted and have caused tremendous obstacles that inflamed longstanding antagonism between the US and Iran. Consequently, Obama and Trump's administrations had constructed a concrete and consistent policy towards Iran. It can be argued that both Obama and Trump administrations have developed a clear, consistent and coherent strategy for handling the disputed issues with Iran. However, this strategy has not changed markedly the Iranian behaviours and subsequently prevented broad enhancement of US–Iran relations.

KEYWORDS:

• United States
• Iran
• security
• nuclear program
• sanctions
• Gulf region

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ayman Saleh Albarasneh holds a PhD in International Relations from Leicester University, United Kingdom, 2015. He works currently as an Assistant professor at Political Science Department, the University of Jordan in Amman since September 2016 until present. Prior to this he was working at the Gulf Research Center (GRC), Dubai, United Arab Emirates for 12 years (March 2004 until 31 May 2016). He has published a variety of researches on US foreign policy, Middle East politics, and other strategic issues in Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Jordan and in Kuwait Journal for Social Sciences. Dr Ayman has participated and presented papers in numerous workshops and conferences such as “Gulf Research Meeting” at Cambridge University, August 2018. His research interests concerning the Gulf international relations particularly the relations between the United States and the Arab Gulf States. Also he interested in research on Gulf regional security-related issues.

Dania Koleilat Khatib, Executive Director, Al Istishari Al Strategy for Economic and Future Studies, United Arab Emirates. Dr Dania specialty is US-Arab relations with a special focus on lobbying. Dr Khatib research also spans media biases, sectarianism, extremism and governance. She authored a book on the Arab lobby and the factors for success and for failure. Her book is published by Routledge UK. The Arabic version is published by the Center of Arab Unity for Studies in Beirut. She is a regular publisher on, namely, on the US relation with the Arab Gulf in several regional newspapers: Annahar Lebanon, Riyadh KSA-Al khaleej UAE-Al Ahram Egypt and Gulf News UAE – She is a weekly columnist in the Bahraini newspaper Al Watan. Dania is a regular on a series of Middle Eastern TV stations. Dr. Khatib has participated and spoken in numerous workshops and conferences. She was also a co-director in 2017 GRM. She is a member of the Arab Council of Social Studies. Dania holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Exeter and both an MA and a BA in Business Administration from the American University in Beirut.

ORCID

Ayman Saleh Albarasneh http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5853-6279