Maximum Pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran as Multi-Layered Hybrid Warfare: An American Narrative

Over time, various foreign policy and International Relations scholars have offered different themes and arguments on foreign policy. The necessity to review these themes and definitions are due to the continuity of foreign policy as a continuum, in which foreign policy and its different terms take shape and are formed. This study conducts a research on an American perspective of the maximum pressure campaign against Iran, which was a new term and policy enforced by the Trump administration. It reviews different tools of American statecraft and argues that the maximum pressure campaign was a multilayered hybrid warfare with repercussions. In this regard, historically, the American security arrangement in Western Asia has undergone various stages. In the 1970s it was based on the Twin Pillars of Nixon while later on it was based on confrontation which was adopted under different terms such as dual containment and containment. In this study through a contextual analysis it is deducted that the campaign against Iran was an American example of multi-layered hybrid warfare. In addition, it is argued that this multi-layered hybrid warfare created an unstable region. This development alongside the American pivot to Asia has created a regional arrangement which involves great power competition and is inclined towards Chinese and Russian intervention and mediation. Thus an increased third party foothold and a destabilized regional order are the outcomes of the maximum campaign, which ostensibly contradict the American pivot to Asia.