.By Nahal Toosi @ Politico.com, 10/25/2022

President Joe Biden faces growing calls from activists and even a former crown prince to openly back regime change in Iran as the country’s Islamist rulers face a wave of protests. But Biden and his aides are unwilling to go that far.

Instead, the administration is charting a middle path — one that voices support for the Iranian protesters and helps them through both easing and imposing some sanctions, but which falls short of an all-out pressure campaign to isolate Iran’s government or abandon nuclear talks with the regime, according to six U.S. officials familiar with the issue.

[....] The overall strategy is likely to disappoint many in a complex constellation of activists whose voices are driving much of the public debate about the Iranian regime. It also could make crafting U.S. policy toward the Middle East even harder, especially if Iran’s regime snuffs out the protests and emerges more emboldened to pursue a nuclear program and cause trouble in the region.

But the Biden administration is unified on the approach, according to those involved in discussions. “There aren’t camps,” a State Department official said.

The U.S. officials said they must factor in everything from the human rights demands of Iran’s protesters — many of them young and female — to the U.S. preference for using diplomacy to keep Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Iran’s decision to sell drones and other weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine also is complicating the picture [....]