“The US has three goals vis-à-vis Iran: minimalist, maximalist and in-between,” wrote David Frum, a CNN contributor.
He noted that the minimalist goal is to compel Iran to surrender its nuclear ambitions and submit fully to international monitoring, while the in-between goal is more generally to moderate Iran's behavior in various foreign policy areas.
“The maximalist goal is to apply enough economic pressure to incite domestic revolution and the fall of the regime,” Frum said, adding, “…There's a great danger in the maximalist strategy…. A strategy of regime change is a strategy that pulls the US toward open conflict with Iran, and who wants that?”
The analyst further stated that the main question now for American policymakers is: What is the United States trying to achieve?
“The experience with Iraq in the 1990s should be a warning example: The sanctions imposed in 1991 got looser and looser and looser over the decade they remained in place. Demanding a quid pro quo we can't define, and can't probably obtain, in exchange for relaxing sanctions invites an outcome in which by asking for more, we actually obtain less,” he wrote.
On January 23, under pressure from the United States, the EU foreign ministers approved new sanctions against Iran's oil and financial sectors to prevent EU member states from purchasing Iran's oil or extending insurance coverage for tankers carrying Iranian crude. The EU sanctions came into effect on July 1.
On August 1, the US Congress approved more illegal embargoes against Tehran, which seek to punish banks, insurance companies and shippers that help Tehran sell its oil.
Although the illegal US-engineered sanctions have been imposed based on the unfounded allegation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program, a large group of analyst believe that the US is using sanctions as a means of forcing the Iranian government to give up its nuclear energy program, or causing regime change in the country.
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