This we have seen most recently with the oil tanker headed from Iran to Syria that sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, through the Atlantic Ocean, and into the Strait of Gibraltar, where it was detained by British marines. This was incredibly expensive, especially for something that Iran wasn’t getting any money for – the shipment was part of Iran’s support for the Syrian Regime.

Worse still for Iran, the sanctions are also targeting petrochemicals and other products so the Regime can’t even afford to negate the oil sanctions.

The US had a great plan for sanctioning Iran, one that guessed how Iran would react and planned to push the Regime to its breaking point. The US knew that this pressure would cause Iran to abandon any pretence that it was complying with the nuclear deal and cause the other signatories to join the US in reimposing sanctions.

So far, Iran has breached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or 2015 nuclear deal as its more commonly known, by exceeding the levels of low-enriched uranium and the purity of enriched uranium. Soon, the EU, China, and Russia will be forced to withdraw from the nuclear deal.

Iran has also increased its aggression in the Middle East, both through its proxy militias in Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, and its attacks on oil tankers in the vital shipping lanes of the Persian Gulf, one of which Iran threatened to close in response to US sanctions. This is all Iran’s way of lashing out.

Abdulrahman Al-Rashed, the former general manager of Al Arabiya news channel, and former editor in chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, wrote: “No one wants to slip into war — not even the Iranians themselves. However, Iran wants to push things toward ending or curbing the US sanctions. This will never happen, with the US administration insisting on the implementation of the majority of its “scheme.” The sanctions will not be lifted, and negotiations are the only solution on the table. Iran has to make the expected concessions.”