The new US administration and Iran are sizing up one another, without wishing to cause a violent escalation liable to destabilize the Gulf and test their determination to carry out their declarations.
Iran and the United States under the Trump Administration
By INSS -- Eldad Shavit , Sima Shine , Anna Catran—— Bio and Archives--March 6,
2017
The new American administration and Iran were on a collision course even before President Trump’s inauguration, and the missile tests conducted by Iran (on January 29, 2017), a few days after Trump was sworn in, drew an immediate response. Though not materially different from stances by the Obama administration, the US response took the form of sanctions against 13 people and 12 companies linked to the missile industry, including members of the Revolutionary Guard (a list that was likely prepared in advance). On February 3, 2017, without going into details, then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn stated that the administration was “officially putting Iran on notice,” and after an attack by Iranian-supported Houthi rebels in Yemen on a Saudi vessel, Secretary of Defense James Mattis emphasized that Iran was the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.
