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The Hill (23 September 2020)

Daniel Depetris

On Monday, the White House enacted yet another round of economic sanctions against Iran — this time targeting dozens of individuals spread out across Tehran's nuclear, missile, and defense industries. The latest executive order is a supplement to Washington's decision days earlier to invoke the snapback provision under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which reimposes all U.N. sanctions previously lifted (the vast majority of the U.N. Security Council rejected the move as null and void).

Despite two years of maximum pressure on the Iranian economy, Tehran is as uninterested in coming back to the table and engaging in negotiations with the United States today when the campaign began in May 2018. This lack of success hasn't stopped the Trump administration from turning the economic screws on Iran even tighter. Indeed, Washington's fixation on Iran prevents President Trump's stated desire to extricate U.S. troops from conflicts in the Middle East. Thousands of U.S. service members remain in Iraq and Syria to contain a country that, at best, is a mid-level power in the region. 

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