Iran got stronger after Trump’s ‘disastrous maximum pressure’ policy, says US senator

As diplomats from Iran and the 4+1 countries press on to undo former US president Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy against Tehran, an American senator says the only upside of the policy was that it proved unilateral sanctions make things worse.

In a tweet, Senator Chris Murphy strongly criticized Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iran deal, which he followed by imposing illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic with the objective of crippling the Iranian economy.

The deal is formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Negotiations were launched in April 2021 under the Joe Biden administration to have the US return to the JCPOA and lift US sanctions in exchange for Iran returning to its nuclear obligations.

“The only upside of Trump’s disastrous ‘maximum pressure’ Iran policy was that it definitively proved that unilateral sanctions make things worse, not better,” Murphy said.

However, the Democratic lawmaker resorted to fear-mongering about Iran’s nuclear activities and its regional influence so as to attack the Republican president.

“Iran got stronger and their behavior got more dangerous after we left the deal,” he asserted.

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Following the US withdrawal, Iran initially refused to take reciprocal actions as stipulated under the JCPOA, giving diplomacy a chance. But after an entire year of “strategic patience,” it finally began to advance its nuclear program beyond the caps set by the deal, describing its decision as “reversible” and “remedial.”

“There is nothing about the last four years that tells us America or the world is safer with no nuclear deal between the US and Iran,” Murphy said in another tweet.

He claimed that once Trump exited the deal, “Iran began shooting at our troops, sped up nuclear research, and increased support for dangerous regional proxies.”

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Murphy has been a vocal critic of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA and his maximum pressure sanctions on Iran. He has also slammed the move as “one of the dumbest, most dangerous foreign policy decisions of the last fifty years.”

Iranian officials also dismiss the so-called maximum pressure campaign as a humiliating failure, stressing that the Iranian nation’s “maximum resistance” defeated the aggressive policy.

“When the Americans officially acknowledge that they have failed in their maximum pressure [policy], an ignominious failure, this is a victory for the Iranian nation,” President Ebrahim Raeisi said on Wednesday.

“Today, the nation’s maximum resistance to [acts of] sedition and sanctions has borne fruit and the maximum pressure has failed,” he added.

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