'Trump wants to push Iran to the point of no return' writes ishaantharoor for Today's WorldView newsletter.
By Ishaan Tharoor Ishaan Tharoor Reporter covering foreign affairs, geopolitics and history Email Bio Follow April 24 at 12:59 AM Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? Sign up for the Today’s WorldView newsletter.
For the Trump administration, it’s only the latest confrontational move against Iran. After unilaterally withdrawing from the nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and world powers, the United States placed sweeping sanctions on senior Iranian officials and various sectors of the country’s economy. And it recently listed Iran’s influential Revolutionary Guard Corps as a “foreign terrorist organization,” an act that probably will make it harder for future U.S.
— Donald J. Trump April 22, 2019 But it’s not fully clear whether the Trump administration has done its own due diligence. The United States is probably banking on Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers to help offset the Iranian oil taken off the market. But energy experts warned that may be a trickier proposition than it seems, and will almost certainly jack up gas prices for the average American.
“Their compliance with the eleventh-hour White House demand that they end purchases immediately of Iranian oil or face U.S. financial sanctions will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve,” noted Gerald Feierstein, senior vice president of the Middle East Institute. As for India, analysts suggested it probably will continue purchasing a reduced amount through a rupee payment. Tanvi Madan, a South Asia expert at the Brookings Institution, pointed to the damage that may be done to ties between the world’s largest democracies.
But the White House’s latest steps make the task even harder. In a tweet, Peter Westmacott, a former British ambassador to the United States, warned that the canceling of the waivers would stoke “regional instability,” anger U.S. partners, hurt both the Turkish and Iranian economies, and strengthen the hand of Iranian hard-liners who want nothing more than Iran to adopt a more hostile pose against American pressure.
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