'Trump’s Iran sanctions could backfire' via PostOpinions
By David Ignatius David Ignatius Columnist covering foreign affairs Email Bio Follow Columnist April 9 at 7:28 PM The Trump administration’s “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran assumes that economic sanctions are weakening its Revolutionary Guard Corps — and that more sanctions will make the Revolutionary Guard weaker still. The problem is that U.S. and European intelligence analysts don’t think this forecast is accurate.
History has shown that these operatives find illegal ways to escape pressure, and that the economic vise instead tightens for the Iranian people. Sanctions have their uses, to be sure. The ban on oil and financial transactions that President Trump re-imposed after withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal has hit Iran hard. Oil exports have been cut in half, from 2.5 million barrels a day in April 2018 to about 1.25 million barrels in February, according to Reuters. The International Monetary Fund predicted Tuesday that Iran’s economy will shrink 6 percent this year, after a 3.9 percent decline last year. Inflation is running at 47.
The pressure is mounting, but to what end? As with other Trump administration foreign policies, it’s hard to discern the strategic goal. Trump has privately told foreign leaders that he wants to pressure Tehran back to the bargaining table and win a better, broader nuclear deal than the one negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama.
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