Dear President Trump,
While we share the administration's concerns about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ nuclear program and destabilizing activities, strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure, including power plants, industries, bridges and universities, some of which have already begun, are strategically counterproductive, escalating costs to Americans while reducing our ability to achieve America’s objectives.
Iran's ability to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz through mines, fast-attack boats, coastal missiles and drones does not depend on power plants or refineries. Destroying civilian infrastructure removes Iran's incentive to reopen the strait; it does not remove its capability to close it.
Striking infrastructure devastates the livelihood of 92 million civilians. Aside from its resulting humanitarian crisis, it will further widen the scope of the war and allow the IRGC to position themselves as defenders of the nation and rebuild their badly damaged internal support. Infrastructure strikes and a prolonged war also let them blame economic misery on foreign aggression rather than their own mismanagement.
Consistent opinion polls over recent years show that Iranians hold the United States in remarkably high regard. A military strategy that disregards their well-being risks squandering one of America's most valuable — and underutilized — assets in the Middle East: the goodwill of the Iranian people.
Beyond Iran, the cost to the United States is immense. Extended closure of the Strait, sustained high oil prices and extensive damage to production facilities in the region would hurt American consumers directly. Moreover, with lost leverage for achieving peace and a more entrenched IRGC, the risk of this intervention becoming a years-long war in the Middle East goes up dramatically.
Infrastructure strikes would impose enormous economic and strategic costs on America and humanitarian costs on the people of Iran, while strengthening the IRGC. The strategically superior path is maximum pressure on the IRGC itself, preserving the leverage that makes resolution possible.
Respectfully,
- Daron Acemoglu — institute professor, MIT; Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2024
- Alvin Roth — McCaw professor of economics, Stanford University; Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2012; past president of the American Economic Association
- Robert B. Wilson — professor emeritus, Stanford University; Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2020
- Laurence Ales — professor of economics, Carnegie Mellon University
- Michael Alexeev — professor emeritus, Indiana University
- James E. Anderson — Neenan professor of economics, Boston College
- Ashish Arora — professor, Duke University
- Cuimin Ba — assistant professor, University of Pittsburgh
- Jonathan Baker — professor of law emeritus, American University
- Susanto Basu — professor, Boston College
- Mostafa Beshkar — associate professor of economics, Indiana University
- Jim Berry — associate professor, University of Georgia
- Emily Blanchard — associate professor, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth; former chief economist, U.S. Department of State (2022–23)
- Michele Boldrin — Joseph G. Hoyt distinguished university professor of economics, Washington University in St. Louis
- Severin Borenstein — professor of the Graduate School, University of California, Berkeley
- R. Anton Braun — Senior Professor, GRIPS
- Luís Cabral — Paganelli-Bull professor of economics and international business, New York University Stern School of Business
- Gregorio Caetano — associate professor of economics, University of Georgia
- Karen Clay — Teresa and H. John Heinz III professor of economics and public policy, Carnegie Mellon University
- Gian Luca Clementi — professor of economics, New York University
- Majid Darvishian — assistant professor of finance, Indiana University
- David DeRemer — assistant professor, Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Business
- Avi Dor — professor, George Washington University
- Piotr Dworczak — associate professor of Economics, Northwestern University
- Bruce Elmslie — professor of economics, University of New Hampshire
- Hadi Salehi Esfahani — professor emeritus, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Farid Farrokhi — associate professor, Boston College
- Domenico Ferraro — associate professor, Arizona State University
- Andrew Garin — associate professor of economics, Carnegie Mellon University
- Martin Gaynor — Lester A. Hamburg University professor of economics and public policy emeritus, Carnegie Mellon University
- Martin Gervais — professor of economics, University of Georgia
- Mahdi Ghodsi — senior economist, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies
- Gene Grossman — Jacob Viner professor of international economics, Princeton University
- Heather A. Haveman — professor of sociology and management, UC Berkeley
- Christopher Herrington — associate professor, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Thomas J. Holmes — professor of economics, University of Minnesota
- Hugo Hopenhayn — professor of economics, UCLA
- Roozbeh Hosseini — associate professor, University of Georgia
- Xiang Hui — assistant professor, Washington University
- David Jinkins — associate professor, Copenhagen Business School
- Samuel Kapon — assistant professor, UC Berkeley
- Timothy J. Kehoe — distinguished McKnight University professor, University of Minnesota
- Natalia Kovrijnykh — associate professor of economics, Arizona State University
- David Kuenzel — associate professor of economics, Wesleyan University
- Camille Landais — professor of economics, London School of Economics
- Ahmad Lashkaripour — associate professor, Indiana University
- William D. Lastrapes — professor of economics, University of Georgia
- Tommy Leung — associate professor, Wake Forest University
- Dmitry Livdan — professor, UC Berkeley
- John Lopresti — associate professor of economics, William & Mary
- Giovanni Maggi — professor of economics, Yale University
- Ladan Masoudie — associate professor of economics, University of Southern California
- John McLaren — professor of economics, University of Virginia
- Farshid Mojaver — visiting scholar, University of California, Davis
- Ali Moghtaderi — associate professor, George Washington University
- Benjamin Moll — Sir John Hicks professor of economics, London School of Economics
- Stephen Morris — professor of economics, MIT
- Enrico Moretti — professor, University of California, Berkeley
- Christian Moser — associate professor, Columbia University
- Bob Murphy — professor, Boston College
- Ishan Nath — assistant professor of public policy, Harvard Kennedy School
- Peter Newberry — associate professor of economics, University of Georgia
- Aniko Oery — associate professor of economics, Carnegie Mellon University
- Svetlana Pashchenko — associate professor, University of Georgia
- Harry Pei — assistant professor, Northwestern University
- Evan Piermont — associate professor, Royal Holloway, University of London
- Jim Rebitzer — emeritus professor, Peter and Deborah Wexler Professor of Management and Economics, Questrom School, Boston University
- David Reiley — adjunct professor, University of California, Berkeley
- Barak Richman — Alexander Hamilton professor of business law, George Washington University
- Luca Rigotti — professor and chair, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh
- Maryam Saeedi — associate professor of economics, Carnegie Mellon University
- Ali Shourideh — associate professor of economics, Carnegie Mellon University
- Lones Smith — David Blackwell professor of economics, University of Wisconsin–Madison; fellow, Econometric Society
- Stephen Spear — professor of economics, Carnegie Mellon University
- Kjetil Storesletten — Fink professor of economics and Litterman director of Heller-Hurwicz Economics Institute, University of Minnesota
- Philipp Strack — Cowles Foundation professor of economics, Yale University; Clark Medal 2024
- Steven Tadelis — professor of economics, business and public Policy, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business
- Richard S.J. Tol — professor, University of Sussex and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
- Robert Town — professor, University of Texas
- John Turner — Jasper Dorsey chair of public utilities economics, University of Georgia
- Richard Van Weelden — professor of economics, University of Pittsburgh
- Gustavo Ventura — professor, Arizona State University
- Galina Vereshchagina — associate professor, Arizona State University
- Matthew Weinberg — professor of economics, The Ohio State University
- Laura Weiwu — assistant professor, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business
- Stephen Yeaple — professor of economics, Pennsylvania State University
