Will US bring back carrot and stick approach to Iran?

Not a day that goes by when, via private messages or on social media, Iranians don’t express their anxieties and concerns over the future of the nuclear deal and ask me if I know what President Donald Trump will do with the agreement in mid-May. This is an important question but the answer is not easy as the speculation is harder than ever to separate from the fact that Trump is keen not only to fix the deal, but also to discipline the political rulers in Tehran. 
To discipline, there’s a need to implement some harsh punishments, while also offering some rewards as well. This same carrot and stick policy was pursued by President Barack Obama as he entered into negotiations with Tehran. I remember well the Iranian Foreign Ministry calling that carrot and stick diplomacy offensive, and the phrase somehow has not been heard since. 
But Iran has not just been fed a carrot with this nuclear deal, rather the icing part of a carrot cake thanks to the great opportunities offered when the country’s blocked assets were released in cash by Obama and the sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program were lifted. The region was thus left with an aggressive Iranian regime, whose leadership frequently repeated it had no desire to hold regional talks or change its attitude and behavior. 
Now, with John Bolton set to become National Security Advisor and Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, could the US use the deal as a stick to correct the path of Iranian aggression in the region?
The foreign ministers of the three major European countries involved in the deal — France, Germany and the UK — on Wednesday met their EU counterparts and proposed new sanctions over Iran’s ballistic missile program and its role in the Syria war in order to satisfy Trump. But Spain, Italy and Austria opposed the move and claimed that such sanctions would be ineffective in convincing Trump to remain committed to the deal, while also hurting their relations with Iran. 
This EU package sounds like it is offering carrots to Trump and the stick to the Iranian people, who are desperately seeking changes and no longer care for the deal itself. 

The questions Iranians have been raising on social media are not about the future of the nuclear deal, but rather the future of the world’s relations with this regime when the basic rights of its citizens are denied and their money is spent everywhere except on them.

Camelia Entekhabifard

The questions Iranians have been raising on social media are not about the future of the nuclear deal, but rather the future of the world’s relations with this regime when the basic rights of its citizens are denied and their money is spent everywhere except on them. They have been humiliated and offended in every possible way over the last 40 years. What is this deal good for if doesn’t serve the Iranian people first?
Someone asked me recently if the Islamic Republic would ever give up its presence in the region and the support it gives to Hezbollah, Hamas and the Shia militias? Well, to my knowledge, not as long as they feel the regime change threat is on the table. Iran’s foreign policy strategy has been built around its regional presence and, through access to foreign-based militias, engaging in proxy wars. 
Simply put, while not impossible, it would be very hard for any agreement to reach the goal of wrapping up the Iranian presence in the region and stopping its support for militias in the short term. 
The nuclear deal was a good start but not good enough to convince the political leaders in Tehran that they are safe from any regime change plan. And the world’s patience is not enough to tolerate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps for another decade. 
As long as there is no common ground between the West and Iran, neither the nuclear deal nor any other agreement could bring them together. Iran is suspicious of the aims of the Western nations, especially the US, and this trust will never be built if Washington and Tehran don’t deal with each other directly. 
For the Iranians, the nuclear deal was not only meant to improve the economy, but also the country’s relations with the West, so that Iran could gain the same prestige and value it had before the revolution in 1979. But, for the regime in Tehran, the deal meant a guarantee for the continuation of its corrupt, abusive system, along with some economic improvements to satisfy the angry people who suffer most.
Maybe the time has come for a proper correction of the mutual understanding between the regime and the Iranian people. 
 

• Camelia Entekhabifard is an Iranian-American journalist, political commentator and author of “Camelia: Save Yourself By Telling the Truth” (Seven Stories Press, 2008). Twitter: ​@CameliaFard