Jonathon Tobin:
But it turns out that the Iran hawks in Trump’s new foreign-policy team — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton — understood the situation better than the “adults” who urged the president not to scrap the nuclear deal. Rather than allow weak-willed allies to dictate US policy, Trump realized he could tell the appeasers what to do and make it stick because of the power of the US economy.
The shift in energy markets that led to the world being awash in oil — including the fact that the United States is now a net exporter rather than dependent on foreign sources — also means Iran has little leverage over the West.
The implications are clear.
Far from a hopeless quest, the US determination to force Iran to renegotiate the nuclear issue, cease its illegal missile program and desist from terror is a realistic goal.
Just as important, though Trump didn’t enter the White House with much knowledge of the subject, this vindicates his instincts that the establishment is intellectually bankrupt. For decades it has guided US Middle East policy on both Iran and Israel.
The success of oil sanctions should not only encourage the United States to push Tehran harder. It’s also one more reason to ignore the so-called experts’ contempt for Trump’s unconventional but clearly spot-on approach to the region.
https://nypost.com/2018/09/20/trumps-iran-sanctions-prove-the-establishment-wrong-again/