Iran: Maybe we need to figure out what to do about those U.S. sanctions we’re pretending won’t hurt us

The mad mullahs scoffed. Ha! The U.S. thinks it can hurt Iran by reimposing sanctions? Laughable! The Great Satan can do nothing to us by taking back the wondrous gifts from Barack Obama and John Kerry! We are Iran! No one can take our share of the oil market! The Europeans will buy from us! This is a joke!

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That’s what they said when Donald Trump announced America’s withdrawal from the deal. It was all the bravado you’d expect from your run-of-the-mill Islamic tyrants. Now it’s becoming real, and it’s occurring to them that they might need to come up with a plan:

Iran’s vice president said on Sunday the government was seeking solutions to sell oil and transfer its revenues after the United States withdrew from a nuclear deal with Tehran and slapped fresh sanctions on Iranian energy and banking sectors. “We are hopeful that the European countries can meet their commitments but even if they cannot, we are seeking solutions to sell our oil and transfer its revenues,” Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA. European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal have been searching for ways to salvage it despite the U.S. exit and Washington’s pressure on its allies to cut purchases of Iranian oil.

The reimposition of U.S. sanctions presents problems not only for Iran but for the Europeans who want to do business with these murderers. It’s not just that we won’t buy their oil. We’ve also cut off their access to much of the financial system and imposed penalties on those who would seek to transfer any money to them. That’s why Iran is concerned about how to actually lay hands on the revenues that would come from international oil sales. They might have willing buyers, but any bank transfer between the two parties is going to become a lot more complicated now that the U.S. is no longer on board.

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Now, if Iran wants to have full rights to sell its oil and realize the revenue, there are some things it can do. It could:

Renounce its nuclear ambitions for real, permanently, and agree to unrestricted inspections by American inspections with no appeal process.

Stop supporting terrorism and provide verifiable evidence that it has done so.

Stop threatening Israel.

Stop meddling in Iraq and Syria.

Stop helping North Korea with its nuclear program.

Restore the human and political rights of its people.

Then the U.S. might be willing to deal. The nuclear deal Obama and Kerry negotiated didn’t require Iran to do any of that, and that’s why Trump abandoned it. When he did, Obama protested that Iran was in compliance with the deal. That may or may not be true (I think not), but even if they were in compliance that’s meaningless because the deal required almost nothing of them. For all the public bravado of the mad mullahs, Iran is in a world of hurt over this and they know it. And they have to come up with a plan, which you can bet will involve violation of any number of national and international laws. Because there’s no way for them to do what they want to do legally. Not that this has ever been a concern for Iran before. They’re a criminal regime, and one of the worst things Barack Obama ever did was to treat them like they were legitimate.

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