A first strike fails and incites retaliation, proxy wars, and broader Middle East instability

A first strike fails and incites retaliation, proxy wars, and broader Middle East instability

The American withdrawal was accompanied, despite objections by its European allies, by the reimposition of unilateral sanctions on Iran’s financial and banking sectors that drastically curtailed Tehran’s ability to do business with the outside world and thus reduced its capacity to sell oil. It also led to the withdrawal of most European firms from prospective contracts with Iran in the energy, construction, and aviation sectors over the fear that if they continued to deal with Iran, then they would be penalized by the United States, where they had much greater interests at stake.

This was followed in November 2018 by Washington’s announcement that it would impose sanctions on countries buying oil from Iran unless they stopped doing so. The announcement was aimed at cutting off Iran’s economic lifeline in order to compel Tehran to accept American demands. These demands included Tehran agreeing to sign an amended version of the nuclear agreement by giving up its right to enrich uranium and closing down all nuclear facilities including those engaged in research for peaceful purposes. The Trump administration also demanded that Iran drastically curtail—if not completely eradicate—its ballistic missile program. Administration officials expected Iran to radically alter its policy in the Middle East—“stop supporting terrorism,” to quote Washington’s lingo—and fall in line with American preferences in the region, especially in relation to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

However, eight major importers of Iranian oil—China, India, Turkey, Japan, Italy, Greece, South Korea, and Taiwan—were given Significant Reduction Exceptions for six months to enable them to find alternative sources of supply while reducing the consumption of Iranian oil. It was commonly assumed that Washington would renew those exceptions for at least another six months in order not to unduly disrupt energy markets by creating oil shortages when prices were relatively high and to allow more time for the major importers to adjust to living without Iranian oil.

Those illusions were shattered on April 22 when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States would not issue any additional Significant Reduction Exceptions to existing importers of Iranian oil when the exceptions expired on May 2 in order to reduce Iranian oil exports to “zero.” He went on to say, “How long we remain there, at zero, depends solely” on Iran’s senior leaders and their decision to radically change course on nuclear, missile, and terrorism issues. The obvious objective of the end of waivers, coming as it does on the heels of Washington declaring the IRGC a “terrorist group,” is to bring Iran to its knees and force it to accept American diktat on the issues mentioned earlier.

To many observers this objective appears to be a Washington pipe dream in light of the history of Iranian resistance to foreign dictates. Since the revolution in 1979 Iran has stood up to unprecedented sanctions for four decades and remained unbowed. Iranians are very proud of the continuity and resilience of their state tradition going back to pre-Islamic days but at least to the early sixteenth century with the founding of the Safavid Empire within more or less the same geographic contours as the current Iranian state.