The Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign is wreaking havoc on Iran’s economy, and the campaign will continue as long as the Iranian regime pursues its destabilizing behavior.
U.S. sanctions against the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism are having a profound effect, as almost every measure shows Iran’s economy faltering.
Sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports strip the regime of billions of dollars in revenue that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force would otherwise spend supporting Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist groups.
Bijan Zanganeh, Iran’s oil minister, said in June that oil exports are weaker even than during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, when the country’s oil fields were under attack.
“Our situation is worse than during the war,” Zanganeh said, according to the Associated Press. “We did not have such an export problem when Saddam was targeting our industrial units. Now, we cannot export oil labeled Iran.”
Meanwhile, the Iranian people struggle under rising prices and a regime focused on exporting terror rather than easing hardship at home. Inflation has reached 48%, though vegetable and meat prices have shot up more than 100% in the past year.
Speaking on Iranian state television early this year, President Hassan Rouhani put it like this: “Today the country is facing the biggest pressure and economic sanctions in the past 40 years.”
Maximum pressure will continue until the regime behaves like a normal country.
