In 2018, the Trump administration imposed a battery of sanctions on the Islamic Republic that, if successfully enforced, make it impossible for it to export petroleum—the country’s main source of revenue. Tehran has responded by creating what Eyal Pinko dubs a “shadow fleet” of tankers to bring its fossil fuels to nations without scruples about evading sanctions:

The Iranian tanker fleet includes about 143 tankers, capable of carrying more than 102 million barrels of crude oil or fuel and 11.8 million barrels of liquefied natural gas daily, with a total value of over $7.7 billion per day. With [this] fleet, Iran began to transport oil secretly to China, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Lebanon, and Venezuela.

Iran and China signed a strategic cooperation agreement in the early 2000s. Based on this agreement, China transferred technological knowledge and production lines of weapons, aircraft, and missiles to Iran. In return, Iran [became] China’s main oil supplier.

Iran’s perspective toward the United States and other Western countries, and its hostility toward them, is an essential tool in the hands of China. . . . For China, Iran is a frontier state against the U.S. in the Persian Gulf. It draws U.S. attention away from the South China Sea, where China is expanding its naval power and taking over maritime territories belonging to the region’s countries.

China is also assisting Iran in selling pirated oil and using the Iranian tanker fleet—the new shadow fleet—for oil-bypassing sanctions. . . . China is even helping Iran operate its shadow fleet so that the tankers will not be detected.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”