National Review Online
Tuesday, July 23, 2019
Rarely has a foreign country seemed so eager to get
bombed by the United States as Iran does right now.
In its latest provocation, Iran seized a British-flagged
tanker in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday. It wasn’t a subtle operation.
Revolutionary Guard forces rappelled onto the tanker from a helicopter, and if
you have any doubt, it was all captured on videotape.
The act raised the stakes in the regime’s confrontation
with the West. After the last round, when the Iranians shot down a U.S. drone,
President Trump ordered a retaliatory strike that he abruptly cancelled, citing
his fears of disproportionate casualties. Our natural instinct would be to hit
Iran hard for its depredations and to establish a deterrent against such
attacks before they get worse. But in this case, Iran clearly wants to provoke
a reaction, which suggests the administration’s more cautious, “rope-a-dope”
approach may be the right one.
Skeptics doubted that the administration’s unilateral
sanctions could truly bite after the nuclear deal opened Iran for business with
Europe. They were wrong. The oil embargo and banking sanctions, imposed after
Trump pulled out of the deal, have been cratering the Iranian economy. The
regime’s aggressions are an attempt to find a way out of the economic
punishment.
The mullahs hope to exploit daylight between the
Europeans and the United States (although poking the British won’t advance that
goal) and to send a message to the White House that its pressure campaign
doesn’t come without costs. Tehran also has begun breaching nuclear limits
imposed under the Iran deal, another front in an effort to spook the West into
rallying around the Iran deal and convincing Trump to relent.
What to do now? The administration should obviously
render whatever assistance the British may request. It should continue to send
more forces into the region as a message of resolve, and to work with allies to
better secure shipping in the Strait. It should ratchet up the pressure
campaign against Tehran, and revoke the remaining waivers that allow the
Europeans to cooperate with Iran’s purportedly peaceful nuclear program.
It is quite possible that Iran considers its provocations
a prelude to another nuclear negotiation. For his part, Trump continues to
dangle the prospects of talks, even blessing diplomatic outreach by Senator
Rand Paul. But the regime has a strong incentive to try to wait Trump out and
hope the election of a pro-deal Democrat delivers what it wants without any
more trouble. Perhaps the Iranians believe that Trump getting embroiled in a
conflict advances that goal. Regardless, they obviously want to escape from the
box that they are in, and Trump shouldn’t let them.
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