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Countering Iran’s Revolutionary Challenge: A Strategy for the Next Phase

May 8, 2007

In recent years, Iran has flexed its revolutionary muscle with a conventional military buildup, pursuit of nuclear weapons in defiance of the UN Security Council, and interventions in Lebanon and Iraq.

Recommendations
The United States needs to achieve a better geopolitical and psychological balance—some deflation of the Iranians’ self-confidence and bolstering of our friends’ confidence in us. The next president can and should aim to restore this balance by supporting policies that:

  • assure some success in stabilizing Iraq
  • opt for a broader use of economic pressures, rather than the narrowly targeted sanctions resorted to thus far
  • step up support of civil society in Iran, including improving the quality of U.S. official broadcasting into Iran

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