There are some nasty folks in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, but Iran is a large, diverse, and complicated place, and there are many other internally powerful people with different agendas (just like most large diverse countries).
In general openness and cultural/economic exchange help progressive forces within the country, and sanctions help xenophobic hard-liners.
Well, this is a bit simplistic. A lot of Trump actions show a pretty clear pattern: recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, recognition of the annexation of Golan by Israel, recognition of the right of Israel to annex parts of the West Bank. Israel has been campaigning for the US to attack Iran for at least the past 15 years, and has used every diplomatic resource to campaign against the nuclear deal with Iran.
Connect the dots.
I've read in various places that the opposite is actually true -- sanctions from the liberal US strengthens the liberals in Iran by highlighting how the regime's aggressive policy is resulting in economic pain for Iranians.
This didn't really work with China either. Granted, there are plenty of examples where sanctions have failed/backfired but I'd like to reject any "general" statement on the best way to liberalize a country through foreign policy.
This is part of a historical pattern that’s basically unbroken but is aptly represented by the US involvement in the world wars. What business did the premier power in North America, or the Western Hemisphere, have in a European war between empires? What possible benefit would accrue to them from it? Very similar argument for the European theatre in WWII but the Pacific theatre is, if anything, more ridiculous if you don’t start the history of US involvement with Pearl Harbour. The US embargoes the Empire of Japan, banning most importantly the export of oil. They know the Empire of Japan cannot continue its never ending clusterfuck of an attempt to conquer China without oil. This was a calculated attempt to bring the Japanese to heel they had to have known could lead to war. And this was not isolated. The only reason the US military started hostilities against the Empire of Japan after Pearl Harbour rather than before was logistical fuckups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers
The US is, in every part of it, hostile to anything that isn’t a democratic republic. This is true even if wide heads within USG know that democracy is bad for US interests. If the Arab Spring had actually succeeded anywhere apart from Tunisia it would have been a car crash for the US. The Arab public is a lot less willing to deal with Israel than the dictatorships, monarchies and juntas that currently surround it, and democracies are very likely to lead to civil war and ethnic cleansing in any country with no tradition of liberal government. See Syria. The US tries to arm the non-existent liberal opposition and all the weapons end up with the people who were Al Qaeda in Syria until yesterday or with those shouting “The Christians to Lebanon. The Alawites to Hell!”
