The Trump Administration has said its goal is to cut off all Iranian oil exports, humbling the clerical regime and potentially persuading it to trim support for terrorist proxy groups and open new negotiations. Each move by Trump — abandoning the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama Administration, increasing sanctions and designating Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organisation — has pushed the US closer to a potential conflict.
Trump, who insists he wants to avoid Middle East wars, has to decide whether to reduce tensions or move ahead unilaterally and risk confrontation.
The Administration's critics say it is trying to provoke Iran to break the 2015 nuclear bargain Trump hates, since the deal did not collapse when Trump pulled out of it last year. But the "maximum pressure" campaign has not yet forced Iran to change its behaviour or come to the table for new talks. If anything, it has set up a contest with Iran that will make it hard for the regime to back down, analysts said.
"What (Ayatollah) Khamenei is saying to Trump is, 'You want to negotiate but you've made no offers and no concessions, and we will not respond to pressure'," said Barbara Slavin, of the Atlantic Council. "I think the Iranians are looking for some sort of gesture from the US. Otherwise, it's too huge a loss of face at this point to talk to Trump."
The US alone cannot enforce a full embargo on Iran, and Trump's campaign to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero has cost him leverage with close allies, some of whom are working to preserve the nuclear deal. Others suspect Trump or his advisers want conflict with Iran.
Iran has responded by threatening to start stockpiling low-level, nonweapons-grade uranium and to close off oil tanker traffic. US officials blame Iran for incidents including tanker attacks that appear to be an indirect show of force. Iran denies involvement
Foreign diplomats quietly point out that the US focus on ever-increasing sanctions has left it few friends outside the Middle East willing to back its Iran policy.
