By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--August 23, 2018
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“We’re not just going to stop at where the sanctions were in 2015, our goal, our objective really is essentially we’d like to say no waivers to the sanctions,” Mr. Bolton said while talking to reporters at the end of two days of meetings with Israeli officials. He next travels to Geneva to meet with his Russian counterpart. Mr. Trump in May withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal, a multilateral pact that freed Iran from international sanctions in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. Washington earlier this month slapped Iran with sanctions targeting its trade of gold and other precious metals, its car industry and the purchase of U.S. dollars. The U.S. is expected to impose tougher sanctions on Iran’s oil sales and banking sector in November. Historically, U.S. administrations have given companies waivers to deal with Iran under certain circumstances, including trade in medical and humanitarian goods. Those exceptions remain in place despite the new sanctions, but other permissions allowing companies to trade with Iran through foreign subsidiaries are to be removed in November. Mr. Bolton said the first wind-down period has ended, with the U.S. only granting two “very limited” sanctions waivers in a bid to show that the administration is pushing tough enforcement. A spokesman for Mr. Bolton declined to say who had received those waivers as the information hasn’t been released.
President Trump’s security adviser said the U.S. sanctions put in place so far have affected Iran’s ability to operate in the Middle East and that the U.S. and Israel are consulting on more sanctions and other ways to pressure Iran. Mr. Bolton said one focus is finding alternative oil sources for countries that have been purchasing from Iran.The U.S. has often talked tougher than it really acted when it came to economic sanctions against bad regimes like that in Iran. We claim to be serious about cutting off their access to wealth and markets, but as soon as American business interests complain that the sanctions are negatively affecting them, the U.S. has been quick to grant waivers. Pretty soon the bad regimes learn how the game is played and let their business counterparts water down the sanctions to the point where they’re meaningless. It doesn’t sound like that’s the plan this time around. The Trump Administration wants Iran to get rid of its nuclear ambitions, period, permanently. The nuclear deal Obama and Kerry negotiated did nothing of the sort, and everyone knew it. Obama’s attitude was that there was no way we could keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and that it was better to get a deal that at least appeared to put some limits on them. But the limits were meaningless, and they weren’t going to keep Iran from getting the bomb. There’s no guarantee Trump’s actions will either, but at least Trump is trying to. Obama didn’t even care.
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