According to the terms of the 2015 nuclear agreement, the U.S. was obligated to decide last Wednesday whether to renew a waiver of sanctions against Iranian oil exports or declare Tehran in violation of the agreement and allow the sanctions to go back into effect. President Trump chose to sign the waiver, despite his campaign rhetoric condemning the deal. But, writes John Hannah, this decision hardly means that the Trump administration has gone soft in dealing with the Islamic Republic; on the same day, the White House issued seven new sanctions against individuals and entities involved in Iran’s ballistic-missile program. And that’s not all:
The clear message [of America’s actions]: while holding its nose to grapple with the detritus of Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, the Trump team won’t hesitate to punch the mullahs in their collective schnoz. Obama seemed paralyzed from taking action to counter Iran’s malign activities for fear of jeopardizing the nuclear deal. So long as the Iranians didn’t cheat too egregiously on their nuclear commitments, they had a virtual get-out-of-jail-free card for their broader assault on U.S. interests—from aiding and abetting mass murder in Syria to the development of long-range ballistic missiles. With Wednesday’s designations and the damning human-rights report [recently released by the State Department], the administration is signaling that the days of U.S. self-deterrence with respect to Iran are numbered. . . .
Limited as [last week’s] punitive action was, it came just two days before Iran’s presidential elections. . . . No more misguided efforts to modulate U.S. policy to strengthen some band of faux “moderates” over the dreaded hardliners. . . .
[Furthermore], none of this comes in a vacuum. Putting Iran “on notice.” Cruise-missile strikes and nearly 300 new [sanctions] designations against the Assad regime. The revitalization of U.S. alliances with Israel and the Sunni Arab states. . . . [Last week’s] waiver renewal should be cold comfort for the mullahs.
Read more on Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/18/why-trumps-iran-sanctions-waiver-should-worry-the-mullahs/