WASHINGTON—President Trump has settled on an old strategy in hopes of a new result in the Iran war, U.S. officials said: economic pressure.
Key Factors
“The real risk is that American politicians, clinging to this bad habit, will instead strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making,” Baghaei said in a statement posted on social media. “This is the optimal space to occupy if we could get more and more oil out to market despite the threats,” said Richard Goldberg, a former senior adviser to the White House National Energy Dominance Council. “A bad deal essentially subsidizes Iran’s reconstitution, while major military escalation risks major oil market dislocation if the regime can withstand the hits and fire back with precision on Gulf energy.”
Instead, Trump opted for strikes to crush the regime and its nuclear ambitions. When that didn’t work, Trump switched to negotiations that produced an interim peace agreement aimed at reopening the strait, capping uranium enrichment and welcoming Iran back into the international community. The deal’s collapse and resulting burst of violence led the administration to reconsider its approach.
Before the war, some senior aides advised Trump the economic chokehold could be enough to topple Iran’s hard-line regime.
Evidence and Data
Trump privately has floated the idea of declaring victory in the war if Iran fully reopens the strait, even without a nuclear deal, the Journal previously reported .
U.S. attacks on three Iranian nuclear sites last year blocked Tehran’s path to acquiring a nuclear weapon, Trump recently told senior aides in meetings, assessing U.S. intelligence capabilities would likely catch any attempts to rebuild those facilities or covertly build a bomb.
