Iran’s emerging efforts to focus on its own region and on Asian partners in an effort to defray the impact of re-imposed US sanctions are likely to face difficulties and multiple complicating factors. As things currently stand, some of the would-be targets of that strategy are prone to contentious relationships with the Islamic Republic, whereby both sides recognize the benefits of mutual cooperation against Western interests but also struggle to let go of their own unique grievances and self-serving ambitions.

The Associated Press reported on Thursday that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had created a special working group for the development and implementation of Iran policy in the wake of the re-imposition of sanctions that had been suspended under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

On Tuesday, the Washington Post quoted White House National Security Advisor John Bolton as saying that the Trump administration is “very serious” about fully implementing new and re-imposed sanctions following US withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, but is not pursuing a policy of regime change in the Islamic Republic.

An article published on Wednesday focuses attention upon Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s recurring use of the concept of public referendum as a political tool for responding to familiar grievances and safeguarding his spurious reputation as a moderate, without taking practical action to address those grievances.

On Monday, Iran Human Rights Monitor published its monthly report for July 2018, detailing a variety of specific incidents involving executions, prisoner abuse, politically motivated arrests, and more. The report also called attention to the fact that the month of July marked the continuation of protests that have been more or less constant since the outbreak of a nationwide uprising at the end of last year. The report focused on protests in southwestern provinces that were brought on by water shortages, but it pointed out that these quickly morphed into “radical anti-government protests which overshadowed all other issues” and gave rise to predictable but intense attempts at repression by security forces.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump floated the virtually unprecedented idea of a direct meeting between himself and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani. The offer to meet with Iran’s leadership “whenever they want” was seen by many as a dramatic reversal following his tweet, one week earlier, in which he addressed Rouhani in all capital letters and promised “consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before” if he ever threatened the United States. The warning came after the Iranian president advised the US government to understand that “peace with Iran is the mother of all peace and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.”