Economics
U.S. ‘Maximum Pressure’ Worked on Iran Before. It May Not Again
- Economic woes more acute than at height of sanctions in 2012
- Failed deal and domestic politics stand in way of new talks
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The U.S. and Iran are back where they were in 2012, a time when their foreign ministers still spoke by megaphone rather than telephone and Washington was trying to force Tehran to the nuclear negotiating table by inflicting as much economic pain as possible.
But although applying “maximum pressure’’ on Iran appeared to work in 2012 -- resulting three years later in a controversial nuclear deal between Iran and major world powers -- so much else has changed that the trick may prove difficult to repeat.