If Nobody Knows Your Iran Policy, Does It Even Exist?

[Dill]

Thought it a good idea to post a view from "the other side" of Trump's Iran policy.

Understanding the Surge in Tensions with Iran
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/iran-tensions-american-foreign-policy-sanctions/

Iran’s recent threats and alleged plans to attack U.S. interests reflect the success of President Trump’s maximum-pressure strategy on Iran. U.S. sanctions have isolated Iran and deprived its ruling mullahs of funds to spend on the military, terrorism, and meddling in regional disputes. The sanctions also have caused Iran’s oil exports to drop to about 1.3 million barrels a day, down from 2.8 million before the U.S. left the JCPOA. Iran’s oil exports probably will drop much further due to the Trump administration’s recent decision to end all exemptions to U.S. oil sanctions. Iran’s economy is expected to shrink by 6 percent in 2019 after having shrunk 3.9 percent in 2018. Inflation could reach 50 percent this year.

At the same time, President Trump remains open to dialogue with Iranian leaders. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a list of twelve U.S. requirements for a new agreement with Iran on nuclear and regional issues in a May 2018 speech at the Heritage Foundation. So far, Iranian officials have shown no interest in dialogue with the U.S. and are sticking to hostile rhetoric to divide and threaten America.

While a new agreement that addresses the full range of threats from Iran is not on the horizon, the current maximum-pressure strategy has yielded many important achievements, including delegitimizing Iran’s nuclear program, strengthening America’s relationships with Israel and the Gulf states, and repairing the damage done to these relationships by the Obama administration. President Trump’s Iran policy has also revived longstanding U.S. policies to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles worldwide.

The bottom line: terrorist and blackmail threats from Iran are not going to save Obama’s fraudulent nuclear deal or deter the U.S. from standing up to Iran’s ruling mullahs.
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If the recent "threats" from Iran are real and a response to Trump's return of sanctions, the US counter-response of increasing pressure is framed as "defense" here.

The goal of trashing the Iran deal and ratcheting up the economic pressure and military threats, then, is to get a new Iran Deal which addresses their continued missile development.

This policy has a certain virtue and clarity, in that it is likely to produce a dramatic change in US Iranian relations in the near future, and in the Gulf balance of power.

If the result of that dramatic change is regime change in the liberal direction, or even a "better" Iran Deal, Trump's policy should be judged successful then.

If the result is war, involving not just US, Israel and Saudi vs Iran, but also escalating to a wider regional conflagration involving Iran's proxies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Gaza, then it is hard to predict what the result might be, but fair to say the risk is great that that result will not favor the US.

But as I say, the virtue of Trump's approach is that it is likely to produce a clear result, one way or the other, before the end of the year. Before the election.