For critics of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Iran policy, the latest display of bravado by the naval wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is proof that the U.S. “maximum-pressure” sanctions campaign isn’t working.
The IRGC’s “dangerous and provocative” maneuvers around U.S. warships, goes the argument, torpedo the Trump administration’s claim of having “restored deterrence” with the Islamic Republic.
More broadly, they also demonstrate that the sanctions have failed to restrain the Iranian regime’s dangerous and provocative tendencies.