By Willis Krumholz
Despite President Trump leaving the White House in January, his Iran policies may be here to stay. The danger lies in the U.S. sanctions campaign known as Maximum Pressure, which the U.S. State Department is rushing to lock in place for the incoming Biden administration. Recently, Iranian president Hasan Rouhani remarked that the United States would have to “make up” for the mistakes of this policy. In other words, the Maximum Pressure strategy undermined rather than improved U.S. leverage. But how did this strategy start and why did it fail?
Maximum Pressure started in 2018 when the United States opted to leave the Iran nuclear deal, and in its place issued an ultimatum known as the “Twelve Demands.” These demands included additional concessions on Iran’s nuclear activities, an end to Iran’s sponsorship of proxies, an end to its ballistic missile program, and a withdrawal of Iranian forces from Syria. The penalty for noncompliance was a campaign of sanctions targeting Iranian trade and financial institutions.
The problem with this strategy is threefold.
This piece was originally published in The National Interest on November 18, 2020. Read more HERE.