Trump’s Only Iran Strategy Is to Punish Iran
After Donald Trump’s announcement last week that the United States was walking away from the Iran nuclear deal, two State Department officials held a background briefing to explain the strategy. The transcript is a painful read. From start to finish, the unnamed officials struggled to answer the most basic questions about the purpose of reimposing sanctions on Iran, what they expected to achieve, which allies they had consulted, and so on. Every time a reporter tried to pin them down on the core question—now that you’ve junked the deal, what comes next?— they mumbled and evaded.
This past Friday, reporters tried again, on another conference call with a senior State Department official. They pressed him for specifics on what exactly the plan will be going forward. The most he would offer was that the United States would bring “all necessary pressure to bear on Iran to change its behavior and to pursue a new framework that can resolve our concerns.” It is hard to get less specific than that.
This is not because these officials are uninformed or unintelligent. And it is not because key figures in the administration, like National-Security Adviser John Bolton, haven’t given it some thought. Mywhich is this: The punishment the strategy. The United States will now apply the means of more economic pressure to achieve the end of Iran feeling more economic pressure.
