Teetering On The Brink

President Trump and Iranian leaders insist they don’t want war. But with a build-up of military might on both sides and increasing economic pressure from the U.S., tensions remain high.

- Jonathan Broder

ONCE AGAIN, THERE IS A RUMOR of war in the Middle East.

A year after President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers, he has dramatically upped the stakes in his aggressive campaign of economic warfare against the Islamic Republic.

Since last year ’s withdrawal, Trump’s reimposition of sanctions already has reduced Iran’s 2 million barrels per day oil sales by half, sending the country’s economy into a tailspin. Now, exercising a policy he calls “maximum pressure,” Trump has targeted Iran’s remaining exports by ending the sanctions waivers he previously had granted to eight of Tehran’s biggest customers. Trump’s goal: to drive Iran into penury and force Tehran’s leaders to accept a new nuclear deal, this time on terms that Trump and his lieutenants insist would be far more favorable to the United States and its regional allies.

“We are going to zero,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared recently, referring to Iran’s oil exports. “How long we remain there, at zero, depends solely on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s senior leaders. We’ve made our demands very clear to the Ayatollah and his cronies.”

Both Trump and Iranian leaders insist they don’t want to go to war. But ever since Trump tightened sanctions last month, the Middle East has seen a major spike in tensions: ominous signs of Iranian military moves against American forces in the region; a rapid buildup of U.S. military might just off the Iranian coast; attacks by suspected Iranian saboteurs on Arab oil tankers; and a drone attack on a Saudi pipeline by Yemen’s Iranian-aligned Houthi tribesmen.