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Ishaan Tharoor
Reporter covering foreign affairs, geopolitics and history
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(Tasnim / Reuters News Agency)
Last week, with a cinematic bloom, President Trump announced the latest punitive measures taken by his government against Iran with a tweet echoing HBO's Game of Thrones. "Sanctions are imminent," he said. the sorrow of the cable network.
On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed that the United States is imposing sanctions on vital sectors of the Iranian economy, including the energy and transportation sectors. maritime. They have targeted more than 700 Iranian individuals, banks, planes and ships, all with the explicit goal of reducing Iran's oil exports to zero. Foreign companies and governments seeking to circumvent these measures risk being sanctioned themselves.
For the Trump administration, which unilaterally withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal earlier this year, this is the start of a new "maximum pressure" campaign on what it sees as a rogue diet.. The White House Hawks and Trump's Cabinet believe the sanctions will change Iran's behavior in the region. They have embarked on this path with the enthusiastic support of Israel and the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, all of whom want to see Iran forced to reduce its support to its proxies throughout the Middle East.
"The Iranian regime has a choice: it can either turn 180 degrees and act like a normal country, or it can see its economy collapse," Pompeo said Monday.
But opponents of Trump argue that the administration's strategy will punish ordinary Iranians without doing anything to persuade their leaders. In the months following the withdrawal of the White House from the nuclear deal, the Iranian economy is stagnant and its currency in free fall. Large multinational corporations have either left the country or have significantly reduced their operations for fear of criminal sanctions in the United States.
International Crisis Group analyzed four decades of data on Iran's economic performance and found that there was a weak correlation between its national security policies and economic distress. "The Trump administration hopes that the sanctions will force Iran to limit its regional activities. But the data shows that the outcome is uncertain, as changes to Iran's wealth have had little impact on the direction or capabilities of its regional policy, "the group said in a report.
"Much of Trump's foreign policy ranging from the Iran deal on sanctions is a big policy but not a big policy" tweeted Aaron David Millerformer US diplomat, highlighting the big difference between the zeal of the administration to punish Iran and its willingness to adapt to North Korea. "The Iranian regime is a bad regime. but only Trump can rent [North Korea’s Kim Jong Un] – a real authoritarian and threatening nuclear power – and not to see hypocrisy in its Iranian policies. "
Meanwhile, the Iranian leaders underlined its continued adherence to the terms of the nuclear agreement and decried the "illegality" of US stocks. The European governments that signed the pact have also rallied to defend it. "Our collective determination to carry out this work is unshakeable," diplomats from the European Union, Britain, France and Germany said in a joint statement. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who had pleaded for the deal after his election in 2014, promised Monday to "proudly break the sanctions."
"Iran is gaining ground in the region, and I do not see these sanctions as going against that," said Jeffrey Feltman, senior official of the State Department for Middle East Affairs under the United Nations. Obama administration, to the Wall Street Journal.
In fact, the sanctions could help Iranian extremists more than anyone else. Analysts claim that the Iranian regime itself is well isolated from the economic turmoil and that its powerful revolutionary guard – the organization that also handles much of Iran's "evil activities" in countries like Iraq and Syria – will not let sanctions change its sanctions. posture elsewhere. Indeed, he may feel emboldened to assert himself all the more defiantly.
As pointed out by the International Crisis Group, the sanctions "risk giving more power to hard-line Islamic Republic officials and inciting them to struggle, exacerbating regional tensions." This is a fear shared by the European allies of the United States, who see Rouhani defeated radical forces within the regime who have never wanted to get closer to the West.
In a phone call with reporters last week, Dennis Ross, a former US diplomat serving three administrations, said the Obama administration had put in place a much larger international coalition when it had put economic pressure on the Iranians half a decade ago. This is no longer the case as the European Union explores ways to protect European companies with Iran from US censorship – and that Washington has already granted exemptions to eight countries, including China and Japan. India, to import Iranian oil.
"The Obama administration had a broad international consensus and a coalition that worked hand in hand to avoid any escape from the sanctioned regime," Ross said. "Iranians are very competent at finding ways to escape the sanctions regime and we will not have a large number of partners who will be as vigilant as they could have been." "
Trump, according to the experts, hopes perhaps that his summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will reproduce. The Iranians, however, have shown no interest in dealing with this American president and may be determined to let him fall and wait for his presidency.
"Tehran has followed the rules and the United States has broken their promises," wrote John Glaser of the Libertarian Cato Institute. "They are not about to spoil themselves voluntarily in response to the new economic sanctions."
Meanwhile, ordinary Iranians will face the daily with sanctions: the shortage of vital drugs, the rising cost of basic necessities, the constant deterioration of the quality of life.
"Today, ordinary Iranians are struggling to answer the question of why sanctions are re-imposed and why they must suffer," wrote Iranian analyst Esfandyar Batmanghelidj. "The inevitability of this suffering and its daily dimension is what makes the US financial war so pernicious."
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