It's been nearly a year since Donald Trump made the decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, to loud cries that it would bring nothing but woe to the United States and our interests in the Middle East.
So far, the result has been closer to the opposite.
That much was further made clear thanks to excellent reporting by The Times' Ben Hubbard. "Iran's financial crisis, exacerbated by American sanctions," he writes from Lebanon, "appears to be undermining its support for militant groups and political allies who bolster Iranian influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere."
Well, heavens to Betsy. When the Obama administration negotiated the nuclear deal, the president acknowledged that sanctions relief for Tehran would inevitably mean more money for groups like Hezbollah. But he also insisted it wouldn't make much of a difference in terms of Iran's capacity to make mischief in the Middle East.
Hubbard's reporting suggests otherwise. Iran can no longer finance civilian projects or credit lines in Syria. Hezbollah fighters and Palestinian militants aren't being paid, and their families are losing subsidized housing. Even Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has complained publicly about the effects of U.S. sanctions.
Nor are those the only benefits of withdrawal. The U.S. is no longer looking the other way at Hezbollah's criminal enterprises, including drug smuggling and money laundering, the way it did during the Obama administration in order to engage Iran diplomatically.
Most importantly, Iran has not used the U.S. withdrawal from the deal to restart its nuclear programs, despite its threats to do so. Part of this has to do with Tehran's belief that it can wait Trump out, especially since Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris have promised to re-enter the deal if elected.
But it also suggests an edge of fear in Tehran's calculations. The U.S. can still impose a great deal more pain on the Islamic Republic if it chooses to do so.
How so? Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told me this week that the sanctions needle now stands at around a 6. With a nod to Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel, he says, "We need to get to 11."
Iran still exports about 1 million barrels of oil a day; the administration could bring it to zero by refusing to hand out sanctions waivers. The State Department could also designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, on a par with al-Qaida or Islamic State, which would "make the entire Iranian economy radioactive" to foreign investment, Dubowitz says.
Expose the immense wealth of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and sanction the companies he and other leading regime figures control? Doable.
The point isn't to punish Iran for punishment's sake. It's to create leverage for a better nuclear deal. In May, Mike Pompeo set a dozen parameters for an agreement, including "unqualified access" to U.N. nuclear inspectors, permanent cessation of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing, the end of Iran's ballistic-missile program, withdrawal of its forces from Syria, and the release of U.S. nationals held in its prisons.
Iran's gross domestic product is roughly equivalent to that of the greater Boston area, with 17 times the population. The regime may be a force to be reckoned with in the Middle East. But it is hardly a giant on the world stage, immune to any form of economic pressure.
The Trump administration has succeeded in dramatically raising the costs to Iran for its sinister behavior, at no cost to the United States or our allies. That's the definition of a foreign-policy achievement. It's time to move the needle up again. The longer Hezbollah fighters go unpaid, or the Assad regime unaided, the better off the people of the Middle East will be.
The New York Times