Disaster in the DesertNovember/December 2019 19Up to that point, the Iranians had
been exercising what they termed
“strategic patience”—waiting for the
2020 U.S. presidential election, tough-
ing things out in the meantime, and
keeping the Europeans onboard by
sticking to the nuclear agreement. Now,
Iran decided to retaliate.
First, it reduced its compliance with
the È¢¬ by expanding its stockpile o
low-enriched uranium. Then, it resumed
higher levels o enrichment. And in
September, it restarted centrifuge
development, shortening the breakout
time for nuclear weapons production.
Since Trump was the Ärst to walk away
from the accord, ripping up the pains-
takingly developed international legal
consensus that prevented Iran’s acquisi-
tion o nuclear weapons, the United
States was in no position to say or do
anything to stop it.
Iran’s moves are putting Trump in an
increasingly tight corner. I he does not
persuade the Iranians to reverse course,
he will come under pressure from his
hawkish advisers and Netanyahu to bomb
their nuclear program, a dangerous
adventure. But the only way to persuade
them is to grant Iran sanctions relief,
which Trump is clearly loath to do. The
tension is also rising because Iran is now
striking at U.S. interests across the
region: six oil tankers hit by mysterious
attacks just outside the Strait o Hormuz,
an Iranian missile attack on the Golan
Heights, confrontations in Gaza pro-
voked by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and
Saudi oil Äelds struck by drones.
In May, Trump responded by dis-
patching a carrier strike group and
bombers to the Gulf, but when it came
to retaliating for the shooting down o a
U.S. drone, he blinked. The Iranianssecurity umbrella to enhance their coop-
eration and, as a White House spokes-
person put it, “serve as a bulwark against
Iranian aggression.” Israel would be a
silent partner. The project’s internal con-
tradictions revealed themselves at the
initial meeting in September 2017, and it
quickly stalled. Trump eventually
appointed Anthony Zinni, a former
commander o U.S. Central Command,
as a special envoy to move things for-
ward. Given the reluctance o the other
Arab states to bait the Iranian bear,
however, Zinni was unable to make any
headway, and he resigned in January.
Three months later, Egypt withdrew, and
the initiative died.
IRAN AMOK
Just like its blundering on other fronts,
the Trump administration’s eorts on
Iran have produced few positive results. It
seemed for a while that the “maximum
pressure” campaign was reducing Iran’s
funding o its proxies abroad. Yet those
operations have always been run on the
cheap, and with some belt-tightening, they
have continued apace. Hezbollah is still
trying to add precision-guided missiles to
its arsenal in Lebanon, Iranian-backed
militias in Syria are staying put, and the
Houthis in Yemen and Hamas and
Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza have
actually had their funding increased.
Not content with the maximum, in
April o this year, Trump dialed up the
pressure even further by designating
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
as a terrorist organization and denying
waivers to China and India for the
purchase o Iranian oil. With its economy
crashing and the Europeans failing to
provide adequate sanctions relief, Tehran
decided enough was enough.