Donald Trump's Huge Policy Mistake in Iran

Daniel R. DePetris

Security, Middle East

Trump has allowed his foreign policy for Tehran to be mismanaged by people who have made the resumption of diplomacy difficult.

On November 4, Iran took its latest step away from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 multilateral deal that provided Iran with sanctions relief in exchange for verifiable limits on its nuclear work. During a press conference, the head of the Atomic Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, announced Tehran was now officially operating its most advanced centrifuges at the Natanz enrichment facility. By the International Atomic Energy Agency’s own assessment, Tehran is now in the process of enriching uranium at Fordow, an underground nuclear site previously confined to research under the deal. Hours later, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a press release rolling out yet another round of economic sanctions against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s inner circle—including Khamenei’s own son, Mojtaba, for operating an illicit funding stream on behalf of the Iranian regime.

This latest development is a fitting representation of the year and a half, where the United States and Iran—-adversaries for the past four decades—have been trapped in a familiar standoff that never seems to end. Actions taken by one have produced reactions by the other in a game of tit-for-tat that almost prompted a shooting war last summer. And as more time goes by, the staring-contest has only gotten more intense.

President Donald Trump needs to see the big picture before the indemnity leads to a cataclysm. The maximum pressure strategy his national security advisers have sold him on continued to create far more problems for the United States than they are worth.