Hudson Institute scholar Michael Doran's February 2, 2015 essay "Obama's Secret Iran Strategy" demonstrates that a very flawed U.S. policy towards Iran actually helped breed Sunni backing for the radical Islamic State. Due to what former Senior Director at the National Security Council Elliott Abrams terms Obama's "ideology" the administration not only failed to comprehendIranian culture and the absolutist theological nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran--a blunder already begun in the Carter White House and perpetuated through all subsequent administrations--but also compounded the error by believing that the mullah regime could be enticed to moderate its behavior.
