US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo complained last week about Republicans in Congress who were grandstanding for harsher sanctions on Iran. Now, he has joined the grandstanders, announcing that the Trump administration is stepping up its maximum pressure campaign against Iran by ending waivers that had allowed some states to import Iranian crude oil.
This may have significant consequences for global oil markets. It will have bigger consequences for US power. Trump administration unilateralists, together with their Capitol Hill supporters and anti-Iran lobby groups, such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, think they can use sanctions as a tool of regime change.
They are wrong. The increasingly desperate efforts of the United States to ratchet up sanctions are likely to backfire, hardening the resolve of the Iranian regime and driving both allies and competitors away from the US-dominated global financial system.