Iranian leaders have doubtless been assessing their options in the wake of President Trump’s May 8 announcement that the United States would withdraw from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and pursue a policy of maximum pressure designed to force them back to the negotiating table. We may soon learn how their assessment concluded, since far-reaching sanctions are about to be reimposed on Iran’s oil sector (its main source of government revenue and foreign exchange) and foreign companies that do business with it—on November 4. Many foreign customers have already cut or halted purchases of Iranian oil in anticipation of this deadline. The challenge for Washington is to apply sufficient pressure to induce Tehran to renegotiate, while deterring it from using force to enhance its diplomatic leverage or impose costs on the United States.

In the past, Tehran has generally responded to pressure on its nuclear program by accelerating its nuclear activities in order to show that the greater the pressure, the greater Iran’s progress. Thus, despite the escalation of pressure from 2006 to 2015, Iran increased the number of operating centrifuges from zero to nearly 20,000. And as pressure on it broadened and intensified, Tehran responded more or less in kind—while eschewing escalatory steps that could have sparked a broader conflict with the United States. Thus, it countered joint U.S.-Israeli cyberattacks on its nuclear program with cyberattacks on U.S. banks and financial institutions (2012); it answered the assassination of its nuclear scientists with attacks on Israeli diplomats in several Asian countries (2012); and it responded to intensified U.S. drone overflights with attacks on U.S. drones in the Persian Gulf (2012-13).

Iran, however, now faces a more complex dilemma: It is suffering under U.S. sanctions that may cut deeply into its oil income but that Europe and many other countries oppose; yet the European powers have told the Iranian leadership that if it violates or withdraws from the JCPOA, they will vote to snap-back UN sanctions on Iran, ensuring that the U.S. policy of maximum pressure will be even more effective.

Read more at The American Interest