The art of the Trump‐Iran deal: An unsuccessful coercive foreign policy

The success of a state's coercive foreign policy depends on how much influence it has over a ‘target’ – a premise that assumes other factors do not obstruct the policy goal. In practice however, the nature of the international system complicates the potential for such a policy's success. This paper examines this idea using the 2018 US decision that aimed to dismantle the JCPOA by pulling out of the agreement and re‐sanctioning Iran. To do so, this paper engages with the general and region‐specific literature on coercive foreign policy, sets out a background of US‐Iranian ties and examines the consensus‐driven momentum that led to the JCPOA, along with the unilateral 2018 US decision to renege on the agreement. The findings demonstrate how the US and Iranian political environments made it difficult to realise the coercive foreign policy goal of dismantling the JCPOA. The reasons for this centre on the notion that the interconnected nature of the international system diminishes the effectiveness of this type of coercive foreign policy – even when considering the USA as a powerful implementer of this policy. Thus, I argue for the importance of capturing contextual factors when considering this type of international relations.