Bloomberg:
The U.S. struck yet another blow against Iran on April 22 when the White House announced it would end all sanctions exemptions for countries that import Iranian crude oil.
“We’re going to zero,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said during a press conference on the policy change. Any nation that continues to buy oil from Iran, he said, will face its own sanctions. “We’ve made our demands very clear to the ayatollah and his cronies,” he said. “End your pursuit of nuclear weapons, stop testing and proliferating ballistic missiles, stop sponsoring and committing terrorism.”
The statements, coming almost a year after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the multinational nuclear accord with Iran reached in 2015, followed closely on the heels of an April 8 decision to label Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization—the first time the U.S. had given that designation to a government entity. Trump said the decision would “significantly expand the scope and scale” of the administration’s campaign to weaken what it sees as one of the greatest threats to U.S. national security in the Middle East.
While Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, wanted to persuade Iran to change its policies by strengthening its links with the rest of the world, Trump’s administration has followed the opposite tack, betting that economic isolation will force Iran to abandon ballistic missile development and change other behavior the president has called unacceptable.
But the new policy isn’t working. Iran still provides Hezbollah with an estimated $700 million a year in funding and bolsters its military capabilities, furnishes financial and military aid to the Shiite Houthi rebels fighting the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, and helps Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war. And despite assertions by U.S. officials in March that the sanctions against Iran’s banking, energy, shipping, and aviation sectors were having their desired effect, Hezbollah is still the strongest force in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen regularly attack Saudi troops on the border, and the Assad regime is consolidating power.
“Iran is feeling a financial pinch, but there is no evidence the pinch has affected Tehran’s ability or willingness to act as it does in the Middle East,” says Paul Pillar, a former CIA officer who’s now a professor at Georgetown University. “Iran does what it does in the Middle East not according to how much money it has, but instead according to what it sees as in its own security interests.”
Relations with Shiite groups have become “one of the pillars” of Iran’s regional policy, says Raffaelle Mauriello, a postdoctoral research fellow in world studies at the University of Tehran, and Iran is unlikely to give that up. Instead, the government is “trying to be resilient and wait for the storm to pass—and the storm is Trump,” he says. “They are waiting for the next elections in the U.S.”
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I think it does, but not in the direction that peace loving people want.
When you corner a cat, she just becomes more viscous and defensive.
The infamous GWB/Cheney hardcore policy resulted in much greater ability to enrichment capabilities. N. Korea has known to thank Bolton for their nuclear advancements. Mullahs and hardliners in Iran will likely thank the charlatan for their next advancements.
tRump is helping to make Russia great again
Embrace BDS movement and Reject occupation, If the bar code starts with 7 29 put it back on the shelf
Buy American, say NO to Chinese madeTrump
“The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King
Most likely president Trump will be re-elected in 2020. Even though, another president takes the office, the new administration continue Trump's policy as far as terrorist activities of Mullahs in the region concerned. Genie is already out of the bottle and noway to be the same as it was before president Trump took the office. Obama was the only president who was sympathetic towrad criminal mullahs because Mullahs let the black hostages go back to America and kept the white hostages. That was the only reason Obama allowed mullahs' lobby (N.I.A.C) freely going in and out of white house or he took a side with mullahs during uprising of Iranian oppositions in June 2009. However, US policy doesn't run by black folks like Obama. Obama was one time mistake. U.S policy runs by white anglo saxsun protestans commonly called "WASP". W.A.S.P are the founders of modern world and America. NOT black people with long history of slavery.
Sivash_1,
Glad to hear you making your position regrding the White and Black in America clear.
A while back I was listening to opinion poll on the streets of America and a black woman was expressing her approval of tRump, she followed by saying that at least now it is in the open and people see for themselves. It is not under a hood and covered by bedsheets.
tRump is helping to make Russia great again
Embrace BDS movement and Reject occupation, If the bar code starts with 7 29 put it back on the shelf
Buy American, say NO to Chinese madeTrump
“The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King
Black people have historical hate of white since the time of slavery. Nothing new. The reality is that they were brought as slaves to America by white Europeans. So what ? The deciscion makers are white anglo saxson protestan. Kennedy was a first Catholic president from minority similar to Obama.
I was referring to the 2020 election because criminal mullahs lobby are hoping new president would NOT be Trump and that ease off the relationship between U.S and Mullahs similar the time of Obama. I am saying that most like Trump will be re-elected. Even if he is NOT re-elected, the new administration will follow the same policy because Genie is out of bottle and American policy wouldn't be the same as the time before Trump took the office.
Obama was sympathetic toward criminal Mullahs because Mullahs let the black hostages free and kept the one hostages. Mullahs were rewarded for that when he received $400 million dollare cash from Obama n Tehran airport. That story wouldn't happen again, but Mullahs' lobby are NOT intelligent enough to understand that. They have lower I.Q, otherwise they would have realized U.S was made by people from European descendant like President Trump, NOT by black people like Obama with long history of slavery.