Shafaq News– Washington
The United States’strategy of forcing Iran back to nuclear negotiations through militarypressure, economic strain, and domestic unrest risks backfiring by entrenchingTehran’s leadership rather than weakening it, an Iran policy expert said onSaturday.
Ivan Sascha Sheehan, anIran specialist and interim dean of the College of Public Affairs at theUniversity of Baltimore, told Shafaq News that President Donald Trump’sadministration appears to be pursuing a coercive diplomacy approach aimed atraising the cost of resistance to a level that would compel concessions orfracture Iran’s ruling elite.
Tensions between Tehranand Washington have escalated since protests erupted across Iran on December 28following the collapse of the national currency. The Human Rights ActivistsNews Agency (HRANA) claimed that at least 6,100 people were killed, whileIranian authorities have acknowledged about 3,000 deaths, prompting Washingtonto intensify pressure on Tehran through sanctions enforcement, militarydeployments, and warnings of possible strikes.
However, Sheehan saidIran’s political system has historically proven resilient under prolongedexternal pressure, cautioning that economic collapse and protests alone areunlikely to bring about regime change without an organized domestic alternativecapable of translating public anger into political leadership.
Military escalationalso carries significant risks, he told our agency, noting that externalattacks often trigger a rally-around-the-flag effect in highly nationalisticsocieties, enabling authorities to suppress dissent and portray oppositionforces as aligned with foreign powers. A strike, he added, could even stabilizethe regime in the short term, undermining Washington’s objectives.
As alternatives,Sheehan pointed to non-military tools including sustained sanctionsenforcement, diplomatic isolation, international legal mechanisms, and theformal terrorist designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).The United States designated the IRGC as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in2019, while the European Union followed suit on January 30, 2026.
Ultimately, he said,Iran’s political trajectory will be shaped primarily by internal dynamics.“External pressure may accelerate [change], but it cannot replace it.”
For Shafaq News,Mostafa Hashem, Washington, D.C.
Read more: US pressure on Iran intensifies; analysts assess strike scenarios and regional risks
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