U.S. President Trump tried to revive the old tactic of “sanction” warfare with Iran yesterday, as his threat to resort to more bombing in order to force Iran to change the terms of the June MoU, has left Iran unimpressed. Further, Iran has been more insistent that, given recent experiences with Trump, there is no reason to pretend that he will do anything to live up to any deal the government could possibly sign with him—unless he provides concrete evidence of a change in his approach. Hence, Iran has not only insisted on a return to the terms of the June Memorandum of Understanding but has also taken to simply issuing Trump orders—pay reparations, withdraw military from the region, and such.
Yesterday, as reported by AP, Trump asserted that more sanctions will break Iran’s economy—even though he has criticized other administrations for their ineffective deployment of sanctions against Iran. Trump told reporters that Iran “can make trouble, but they’re broke. They have no money. You know, Iran is broke, totally broke. And, they’re not paying their soldiers. They have inflation of 300%.”
The spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, responded: “Whenever Washington proves itself incapable of pursuing diplomacy, it retreats into sanctions; and whenever those sanctions fail to produce results, it simply increases the dose. The real risk is that American politicians, clinging to this bad habit, will instead strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making.”
Trump may simply be out of ideas, yet some take a glimmer of hope, in that his notable avoidance of his standard default positions—his negotiations are working and a tremendous attack is about to reign down on Iran—could be taken as a signal of progress. Regardless, it is not clear how Trump will process the reality that Iran will not bow down, nor will new supplies of munitions suddenly appear.
