Iran Has Options and It’s Starting to Use Them
Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign has not forced Tehran to yield—in fact, it’s done the opposite.
Updated at 6:48 p.m. ET on June 17, 2019.
For almost a year, Iran looked set to hunker down and take the Trump administration’s repeated punches—the withdrawal from the nuclear deal, the escalating sanctions, the intensified threats. But now Iran is punching back.
On Monday Tehran announced a clear and rapid plan to start breaching the nuclear deal—which Iran and all the original signatories have stayed in without the United States—unless certain conditions were met. This followed a series of attacks against oil tankers in the region, which the Trump administration has attributed to Iran over Iranian denials, and the last week of a U.S. surveillance drone over Yemeni territory controlled by the Iran-backed Houthi movement.
