Last week, it became evident that the U.S. was planning to allow the Islamic Republic to make financial transactions through American banks, using American currency—in direct violation of a promise made by the secretary of the treasury to Congress last year. The White House has now suggested a workaround that does little to allay concerns about money-laundering and financial support for terror. Why so much eagerness to aid the Iranian economy? Clifford May explains:

It could be because Obama sees the Iran deal as an important part of his legacy [and] he fears that Ayatollah Khamenei will walk away from the deal as soon as the stream of benefits stops flowing. It could be because Obama wants to bolster the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, whom he regards—incorrectly, I’d argue—as a moderate. It could be all of the above. . . .

[But] consider this possibility: he believes in the power of commerce to transform the regime, to convert its theocrats into tycoons more eager to make money than war, more focused on building nest eggs than spreading the Islamic Revolution. . . .

[This strategy’s] most obvious flaw: Iran’s theocrats are already filthy rich—and they’ve never been overly concerned about the deprivations suffered by the average Iranian. “This revolution was not about the price of watermelons,” Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s first “supreme leader,” famously stated. Not a shred of evidence suggests that his heirs see things differently.

Two weeks ago, a terrorist—most likely working for Hizballah—managed to cross into Israel from Lebanon and plant an explosive device near Megiddo that wounded a civilian. The attack, according to Matthew Levitt, is a sign of the Iran-backed militia’s increasing willingness to challenge the tacit understanding it has had with the IDF for over a decade. Such renewed aggression can also be found in the rhetoric of the group’s leaders:

In the lead-up to the 2006 war, [Hizballah’s] Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah famously miscalculated how Israel would respond to the cross-border abduction of its soldiers. According to Israeli analysts, however, he now believes he can predict the enemy’s behavior more accurately, leading him to sharpen his rhetoric and approve a series of increasingly aggressive actions over the past three years.

Nasrallah’s willingness to risk conflict with Israel was partly driven by domestic economic and political pressures. . . . Yet he also seemed to believe that Israel was unlikely to respond in a serious way to his threats given Hizballah’s enlarged precision-missile arsenal and air-defense systems.

In addition to the bombing, this month has seen increased reports of cross-border harassment against Israelis, such as aiming laser beams at drivers and homes, setting off loud explosions on the Lebanese frontier, and pouring sewage toward Israeli towns. Hizballah has also disrupted Israeli efforts to reinforce the security barrier in several spots along the Blue Line, [which serves as the de-facto border between Lebanon and the Jewish state].

This creeping aggressiveness—coupled with Nasrallah’s sense of having deterred Israel and weakened its military posture—indicate that Hizballah will continue trying to move the goalposts.