No. of Recommendations: 2
She concludes with:
The U.S. doesn’t need a nuclear agreement with Iran to achieve these goals. But once the Strait of Hormuz is opened, if the administration engages in nuclear negotiations, it’s critical that the following conditions are maintained:
Not a single penny of frozen assets or sanctions relief should go to Tehran. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran used the money to rebuild its capabilities and those of its proxies. It would do so again.
Which is one of many reasons (outlined earlier) why the JCPOA was a failure.
This war hasn’t brought, as many had hoped, the end of the Iranian regime. But it has left a weaker, more confused one. The public hasn’t seen Mojtaba Khamenei since his installation as supreme leader. Economic pressure has made the regime vulnerable—not necessarily to the street, where it can always crush dissent, but perhaps to internal fractures over Iran’s future relationship with the world. If the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps controls 40% of the economy, as reports indicate, the U.S. must make sure Tehran understands that 40% of nothing is nothing.
Strategic patience is hard, and it isn’t always satisfying. But time is on the side of the U.S. and its allies. Reaching no deal is fine. Reaching a bad deal isn’t.
This is a new day in the Middle East, though it isn’t one without clouds. No American president has had a better chance to build a different and more stable region. It may just take a little more time.
Exactly right.
