History shows how negotiations with Iran can achieve American goals

The memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the United States and Iran is far from peace. It hasn’t even ended the fighting.

But that is not the right way to judge the MOU.

The real question is whether it eventually creates a political process that can do what force and pressure have repeatedly failed to do: give both sides a way to step back from escalation without appearing to surrender. For the United States, that means restraining Iran’s nuclear capabilities and behavior in the region. For Iran, it means something just as important: preserving sovereignty and political dignity, while moving from confrontation to negotiation.

History provides a pathway for both sides to achieve what they want. At key moments in the past, Iran has engaged in constructive diplomacy because it could present negotiation not as a capitulation to outside powers, but as a means of defending national rights, territorial integrity and political independence.

In other words, Iran will negotiate for sovereignty, not surrender. And this insight from the past should guide the current negotiations.

After World War II, Soviet troops remained in northern Iran and supported separatist movements there. Tehran resisted the fragmentation of its territory and brought the issue before the newly created United Nations.

For Iran, this was not a passive appeal for outside rescue. It was an effort by a weaker state to use international diplomacy to resist the pressure of a much stronger power. Tehran’s strategy mattered because it allowed Iran to defend its sovereignty through political means rather than by accepting fragmentation or relying on force alone.

The crisis ended with Soviet withdrawal and became one of the earliest tests of the postwar international system.

The outcome did not erase the imbalance between Iran and the great powers, but it showed that diplomacy didn’t mean accepting humiliation. Instead, it could offer Iran a forum in which its territorial integrity and political independence could be asserted and protected. That, in turn, allowed Tehran to frame compromise and de-escalation as the defense of its sovereignty.

Forty years later, the newly declared Islamic Republic again used diplomacy to counter a threat — this time to end a war.

Iran and Iraq had been at war for most of the 1980s. The conflict was devastating. Iran suffered enormous human and economic losses, and the fighting was increasingly difficult to sustain.

In 1988, Iranian leaders accepted a ceasefire under the auspices of the United Nations.

That decision was painful. It did not reflect trust in Iraq, the United States or the broader international system. Nor did it mean that Iran had suddenly abandoned the revolutionary language through which it had justified years of sacrifice. Instead, it reflected a sober recognition that endless war no longer served Iran’s survival, sovereignty or national welfare.

Iranian leaders weren’t eager for compromise. But it became possible, because they could sell the ceasefire as a way to preserve the state rather than to surrender it. It allowed Tehran to move from war to diplomacy while still claiming to have defended the nation.

This pattern of diplomacy continued after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Despite decades of hostility, the United States and Iran found overlapping interests in Afghanistan. Both opposed the Taliban, and Iranian diplomats played a constructive role following the Taliban’s initial defeat. Iran wanted a stable Afghanistan that would not again become a Taliban sanctuary on its eastern border; the United States wanted help building a post-Taliban order without getting bogged down immediately in another regional confrontation.

The episode demonstrated something important: Iran could work with the United States — a bitter adversary — when it could pursue its concrete interests, and when the U.S. was not demanding that the Iranian regime humiliate itself.

Cooperation over Afghanistan did not require Iran to surrender sovereignty or accept an American-dominated regional order. It allowed Tehran to advance a security interest while being treated, however briefly, as a political actor whose interests mattered. For the United States, it showed that limited engagement with Iran could serve American goals without requiring trust or friendship.

This cooperation did not produce a new era of U.S.-Iranian friendship. Rather, it soon collapsed under the weight of mistrust, ideological hostility and American domestic politics.

Fourteen years later, the 2015 nuclear agreement offered a more formal version of the same lesson. It did not end disagreements between Washington and Tehran over sanctions and Iran’s role in the Middle East. But it showed that verification, sequencing and reciprocal concessions could reduce one of the world’s most dangerous nuclear confrontations.

The agreement was possible because it gave both sides something they could defend politically. Iran could say it had preserved its right to a civilian nuclear program and won sanctions relief. The United States and its partners could argue they had imposed limits, inspections and verification mechanisms on Iran’s nuclear activities. Each side could present the deal as a hard bargain that protected national interests.

As in 2001, the agreement eventually collapsed. That exposed how diplomacy with Iran will always be vulnerable because mistrust runs deep, domestic opponents on both sides can always repackage compromise as surrender and powerful regional actors continue pressing for conflict.

Despite these vulnerabilities, those working on the current MOU should recognize that diplomacy has been the only thing that has worked in the past — so long as Iranian leaders can sell negotiations as defending national rights and sovereignty, and outside powers like the U.S. can show that they have made Americans and their allies safer.

While history does not guarantee success, it does suggest that it’s possible to forge an outcome in which the conflict between the U.S. and Iran can be managed politically — if each side recognizes the other side’s political constraints.

Zach Battat is a historian of the modern Middle East whose work examines diplomacy, empire and external power politics in the region.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of The Inquirer.