Foreign Policy in Iran

As I began to research the U.S. Foreign policy in Iran I was quickly bombarded with tons of articles and information. Considering the heated political climate in Iran right now, the United States’ current foreign policy is very complicated. However, I have broken my findings down into a few major topics that are important now: Iran’s Nuclear program, financial pressures on the country and their assumed ties to terrorists.
Preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons has been a longstanding goal of U.S. national security policy. The United States sees Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capabilityas it’s greatest threat today. In 2003 it was suspected that Iran was not acting in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and was highly capable of producing enriched uranium. As a result several inspections and diplomatic missions took place. Those inspections revealed two decades worth of undeclared nuclear activities in Iran.
Today Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems to be at a standoff with the west. While Ahmadinejad has claimed that the Tehran nuclear program is for energy research, the United States has accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons and have demanded it stop uranium enrichment. The United States’ believes that the international community is also interested in preventing Iran from being Nuclear Weapons capable.
The U.S. has believes a proper course of action would be to put financial pressure on Iran. Many international banks have already refused to aid the country, receiving support from the U.S. While the United States seeks to block any new loans from the World Bank to Iran, other nations with a share in the World Bank’s voting decided in 2000 that economic normalization, rather than pressure, would be more influential in encouraging Iran to cease uranium enrichment.
The U.S. continues to put pressure on governments in Europe and Asia to reduce the export credits they provide to Iran. The U.S. foreign policy suggests that Governments should not take on the financial risk that private companies are facing in Iran. The United States Itself has tied all Iranian entities to their weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, effectively denying them access to the U.S. financial system.
Lastly, the United States has worked hard to block Iran’s support of terrorism. Tehran has long been considered the world’s leading financial sponsor of terrorism. The regime violated obligations with the U.N through its efforts to rearm Hizballah and by failing to impose sanctions on al-Qaida or confirm the whereabouts of senior al-Qaida members the country detained in 2003.
In response, the United States has enlisted foreign support to block Iranian individuals and entities access to the international financial system. This policy has helped the U.S., disrupt Hizballah’s financial support network.