Suzanne Maloney
Deputy Director - Foreign Policy
Senior Fellow - Center for Middle East Policy, Energy Security and Climate Initiative
Suzanne Maloney is deputy director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow in the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy and Energy Security and Climate Initiative, where her research focuses on Iran and Persian Gulf energy. Her books include the 2008 monograph "Iran's Long Reach" (United States Institute of Peace, 2008) as well as "Iran's Political Economy since the Revolution," published in August 2015 by Cambridge University Press. Her Brookings Essay, "Iran Surprises Itself And The World," was released in September 2013, and she has also published articles in a variety of academic and policy journals.
Maloney previously served as an external advisor to senior State Department officials on long-term issues related to Iran. Before joining Brookings, she served on the secretary of state's policy planning staff, as Middle East advisor for ExxonMobil Corporation, and director of the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S. policy toward Iran, chaired by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
She holds a doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Affiliations:
Johns Hopkins University/SAIS, adjunct professor
Suzanne Maloney is deputy director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow in the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy and Energy Security and Climate Initiative, where her research focuses on Iran and Persian Gulf energy. Her books include the 2008 monograph “Iran’s Long Reach” (United States Institute of Peace, 2008) as well as “Iran’s Political Economy since the Revolution,” published in August 2015 by Cambridge University Press. Her Brookings Essay, “Iran Surprises Itself And The World,” was released in September 2013, and she has also published articles in a variety of academic and policy journals.
Maloney previously served as an external advisor to senior State Department officials on long-term issues related to Iran. Before joining Brookings, she served on the secretary of state’s policy planning staff, as Middle East advisor for ExxonMobil Corporation, and director of the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S. policy toward Iran, chaired by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
She holds a doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
Affiliations:
Johns Hopkins University/SAIS, adjunct professor
There is a pathway to containing and deterring Iran in Syria ... but it requires more than just Israel’s itchy trigger finger and cheerleading from the sidelines by Arab autocracies.
Nothing that Netanyahu has said undercuts the rationale for the [Iran deal]. That deal was predicated on a very clear and broad understanding by all the parties that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program.
The Europeans can try to shield some companies but cannot preserve all the trade and investment that transpired under the sanctions waivers that Trump eliminated this week. In the end, the size of the U.S. market dwarfs any prospect of any benefit they can get from Iran.
Suzanne Maloney on Twitter
No one braver & more committed to advancing real respect for human rights in Iran than Nasrin Sotoudeh. She follows… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…— Suzanne Maloney (@MaloneySuzanne) Wednesday, June 27, 2018
RT @MotamediMaziar: A 31-year old man single-handedly purchased 38,250 #gold coins in Central Bank of #Iran's presale scheme aimed at curbi…— Suzanne Maloney (@MaloneySuzanne) Wednesday, June 27, 2018
RT @berubea1: Abolish ICE twitter.com/danielleiat/st…— Suzanne Maloney (@MaloneySuzanne) Wednesday, June 27, 2018
The uncertainty is not about the complete shutdown of Iran's economy, but about whether it exacerbates what's already a low-level psychological crisis. The value of the currency has dropped precipitously over the last couple of weeks alone. Does the panic revive itself and become worse? Do we see a dramatic capital flight from the country? These things can happen even if macroeconomic indicators look OK.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that he will steer clear of embroiling America in yet another long, messy, costly conflict in the Middle East, but his decision to target the nuclear deal elevates the odds of Iranian escalation and, with it, even greater threats to U.S. interests and allies. The irony is acute; Trump derided the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] because “it didn’t bring calm, it didn’t bring peace,” but undoing the deal will only inflame a region already riven by extremism and sectarian rivalries, making it harder for the United States to extricate itself as the president himself has promised. Until and unless the administration resolves the contradictions between the president’s maximalist objectives, his disinclination to take on the Iranians on the ground, and Washington’s divergence from its core allies on this question, Trump cannot hope to make progress on any element of the Iranian challenge.
I don’t see a revolution on the horizon, but I think we are witnessing the slow-motion metastasis of the revolutionary system that is echoing through the economy and the establishment. I don’t think this is solely or even primarily provoked by the collapse of the deal but, rather, the culmination of a range of internal forces: long-simmering frustrations, the stalemate of two decades of gradualism, demographic pressures, communications technology, and the anticipated imminence of leadership succession.
There is a sense of panic among Iranians about what the future holds. Trump has absolutely exacerbated a sense of financial insecurity.
Given the situation in the region, we’re better off with an Iran that is under constant monitoring and verification, an Iran that has agreed to ship out major elements of its nuclear fuel production, and an Iran that has put a number of aspects of the program on ice for at least a temporary period, than we would be with an Iran racing toward a bomb.