Bobby Ghosh wants Biden to commit more fully to a policy that has already proven to be a massive failure:
Even if Malley emerges unscathed from the investigation, the policy he has been pursuing for the president has been proven pointless. Biden should begin anew, starting with stiffer imposition of existing sanctions and the announcement of new ones as penalty for Iran’s assistance to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
There are few policies that have shown themselves to be more pointless than using broad sanctions to try to compel Iran to do what the U.S. wants. Every time that the U.S. imposes new sanctions or tightens existing ones, the Iranian government has responded by doing more of the things that Washington opposes. When our government attacks other countries with economic warfare, their governments respond just as ours would if it came under attack from outside. They seek to fight back however they can, and that usually takes the form of redoubling their efforts on whatever program or policy it is that Washington demands that they abandon.
Even during the Obama years, when sanctions supposedly “worked” to extract Iranian concessions, the only reason that there was any diplomatic progress was that the U.S. finally decided to show flexibility and compromise with Iran by dropping the demand for zero enrichment. In the end, the U.S. and its allies accepted an agreement that could have been had much earlier if they had been willing to agree to that condition. Broad sanctions didn’t produce diplomatic success with Iran. They delayed it by ten years. Once we understand this, we can see how truly pointless and self-defeating economic warfare is.