Beyond Maximalism: Rethinking U.S. Strategy Toward Iran

The U.S.-Iran war has exposed the failure of a decades-long strategy built on coercion, maximalist demands, and the pursuit of decisive victory. A more sustainable approach must focus on managing rivalry, reducing nuclear and regional risks, and building a durable cold peace.

Launched in February 2026, the U.S.-Iran war fundamentally altered the strategic landscape of the Middle East. The conflict destabilized global energy markets, placed the Strait of Hormuz at the center of an international crisis, intensified regional militarization, and pushed the Middle East toward a wider catastrophe.

Although the postwar memorandum of understanding (MOU) briefly created space for diplomacy, its unravelling and the return of military confrontation underscored the report’s central argument: absent a broader strategic shift, temporary agreements remain vulnerable to the same cycles of coercion, mistrust, and escalation that have defined U.S.-Iran relations for decades.

My new report published by the Center for International Policy, Beyond Maximalism: Reimagining U.S. Strategy Toward Iran Through Systems Thinking, argues that this crisis was not an isolated policy failure. It was the culmination of a decades-long U.S. approach that repeatedly overestimated what military force and economic pressure could accomplish while underestimating how Iran and the wider region would adapt.

Completed using research during my participation as a Ploughshares x Horizon 2045 Nuclear Futures Fellow, this paper applies a systems thinking and foresight lens to an issue far too often assessed in urgency.

For much of the post-revolutionary era, Washington has treated Iran as a static problem that could eventually be coerced into submission. Yet Iran is a complex political system whose internal balance of power is continually reshaped by sanctions, military threats, nationalism, institutional competition, and experiences of failed diplomacy.

Again and again, pressure-centered policies strengthened the very forces they were intended to weaken.

The exclusionary approach toward Iran during the Rafsanjani era discredited Iranian advocates of economic integration with the United States. The rejection of reformist outreach under Mohammad Khatami weakened those who argued that cooperation with the West could deliver security. The collapse of the 2009 nuclear fuel-swap initiative encouraged Tehran to further expand its nuclear capabilities as a source of leverage. Most consequentially, the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement demonstrated to Iranian leaders that even compliance with a multilateral, internationally endorsed agreement could not guarantee lasting sanctions relief or protection from renewed coercion.

These experiences shifted political influence toward the security institutions most invested in deterrence, nuclear hedging, and strategic self-reliance. The 2026 war accelerated that process. Despite extensive attacks on Iranian territory, infrastructure, and senior leadership, the Islamic Republic did not collapse. Iran retained the ability to launch missiles and drones, disrupt maritime traffic, threaten global energy flows, and impose significant costs on U.S. and regional assets.

The result is not a weaker or more compliant Iran. It is a more militarized political system, a more concealed and dispersed nuclear program, degraded international visibility into Iranian capabilities, and a dangerous contest over the Strait of Hormuz.

This does not absolve the Islamic Republic of responsibility for its repression at home or destabilizing conduct. But recognizing those realities does not eliminate the need for strategic realism. Policies should be judged not only by their stated intentions, but by the political and regional consequences they actually produce.

The central recommendation of the report is therefore to move from coercive transformation toward managed competition in U.S.-Iran relations.

Diplomacy should become a permanent mechanism for reducing risk rather than a temporary reward for political convergence. Reciprocal restraint should replace demands for unilateral capitulation.

Regional integration and institutionalized deconfliction should take precedence over permanent exclusion. Any future agreement must also be durable and economically meaningful enough to make continued restraint more rational than renewed escalation.

The realistic objective is not reconciliation, alliance, or the elimination of rivalry. It is a durable cold peace in which competition remains bounded, nuclear risks are contained, and the people of Iran and the region are no longer forced to bear the immense human and economic costs of permanent war.

The lesson of nearly five decades of U.S.-Iran conflict is not that Washington lacked military power or economic leverage. It is that those tools were repeatedly used to pursue political objectives they could not deliver. Until that lesson is absorbed, tactical victories will continue to produce strategic failure.