A less isolated Iran could improve American access to critical mineral supply chains extending into Central Asia | Photo Credit: MAJID ASGARIPOUR

The latest reports emerging from American negotiations with Iran are intriguing. Discussions have reportedly touched not only on sanctions relief and a possible nuclear arrangement, but also on reconstruction assistance, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and broader economic normalisation. Taken together, these proposals raise a question many observers remain reluctant to ask: Have we misunderstood Donald Trump’s approach to West Asia?

The dominant interpretation portrays Trump’s foreign policy as impulsive, transactional, and chaotic. Yet beneath the rhetoric and daily controversies there may be a more coherent logic at work, one shaped less by ideology than by incentives, leverage, and the lessons from America’s recent wars. If there is one event that may explain Trump’s instincts better than any campaign speech or social-media post, it is Iraq.

For much of the post-Cold War period, American foreign policy operated on the assumption that hostile regimes could be removed, political systems reconstructed, and stable partners eventually created. Iraq became the most ambitious test of that proposition. Years of occupation, institution-building, sectarian conflict, insurgency, and eventually the rise of ISIS demonstrated how uncertain the political aftermath of military success could be. Nearly 5,000 American service members lost their lives, tens of thousands more were wounded, and enormous financial resources were committed over two decades. Regime-change proved easier than shaping what came next.

Drawing on the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, Trump appears to have reached a different conclusion. His preference seems to be for a lighter model of power: applying pressure to create leverage and eliminating specific threats where necessary, while avoiding responsibility for rebuilding entire countries.

Approach to sanctions

This perspective may also explain Trump’s approach to sanctions. He is often portrayed as a believer in sanctions for their own sake. Yet the evidence suggests something more nuanced. Maximum pressure may be applied, but routes for negotiation and economic engagement are rarely closed completely. A permanently sanctioned country remains a source of instability and recurring geopolitical costs. A country that can eventually be brought into a framework favourable to American interests becomes an investment destination and a participant in a broader economic order.

This may help understand why Iran occupies such an interesting place in the emerging picture. For decades it has been viewed as a threat that needed to be contained. Yet Iran has demonstrated remarkable resilience in the face of overwhelming pressure. It has developed sophisticated missile and drone capabilities and built a significant indigenous industrial and scientific base. Paradoxically, those strengths may have increased Iran’s strategic value. From a transactional perspective, a capable Iran induced to re-enter global commerce and benefit from doing so under rules largely shaped by Washington may prove more valuable than a perpetually isolated adversary.

Together, Iran and Iraq, both predominantly Shia societies, account for nearly 130 million people. Their combined energy resources and industrial potential make them strategically significant. Under conditions of stability, investment, and normalisation, this corridor could become one of the most important economic zones in West Asia.

The recent confrontation with Iran may illustrate another lesson Trump appears to have absorbed: military force and diplomacy are complementary. If followed by negotiation, military action becomes part of a broader bargaining process rather than an end in itself. The message is that the US retains the capacity to impose costs on a scale few states can comfortably absorb. Once that point has been established, diplomacy proceeds under different conditions. Seen in this light, discussions of sanctions relief, reconstruction assistance, reopened trade routes, and renewed nuclear negotiations cease to look contradictory. According to a recent Financial Times report, discussions have included a possible $300 billion reconstruction fund linked to a broader settlement. Whether such proposals materialise remains uncertain. Yet they suggest that pressure and engagement may be sequential stages of the same strategy.

Trump’s circle

Another factor may be shaping these calculations. The circles surrounding Trump increasingly include entrepreneurs, investors, technology executives, financiers, and builders of large commercial platforms. Many come from sectors at the forefront of global innovation and economic growth. It would be surprising if their perspectives were absent from conversations surrounding a president whose instincts have always been rooted in commerce and deal-making.

For such people, a less conflict-ridden West Asia offers a potentially enormous economic opportunity. Depending on how one defines the region, the Middle East and West Asia encompass around 400 million people, sitting astride some of the world’s most important trade and energy corridors.

A less isolated Iran could improve American access to these routes and, more importantly, to critical mineral supply chains extending into Central Asia. A normalisation of relations with Iran could yield an additional strategic dividend, helping ensure that America plays a leading role in shaping West Asia’s economic recovery and its deeper integration with surrounding markets, while reducing China’s ability to use Iran’s strategic location to advance its Belt and Road Initiative. This is why the Iranian question may be more consequential than it first appears.

The central issue may not be whether Trump seeks to weaken adversaries, but whether weakening them is viewed as the final objective. The emerging discussions with Iran raise the possibility that sanctions, military pressure, and diplomacy are being deployed not as competing strategies but as stages in a broader effort to reshape incentives. If Iraq demonstrated the limits of remaking countries through prolonged military intervention, Iran may become the test of whether leverage and incentives can achieve what occupation could not.

History has not yet rendered its verdict. But it is possible that both Trump’s admirers and critics remain focused on the spectacle while missing the larger question: whether leverage, rather than prolonged war, has become the principal instrument through which America seeks to shape the future of West Asia — and perhaps the wider world.

The writer was a Visiting Fellow at leading institutions in India and abroad and taught public policy and contemporary history at IISc, Bengaluru

Published on June 18, 2026