The Impacts of Renewed Sanctions on Iran: A Conversation with Farnaz Fassihi

Last May, Donald Trump unilaterally violated the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran, the United States, and 5 other world powers, and followed this up by reimposing harsh economic, trade and financial sanctions against Iran- Back in July of 2015 Iran, the US, along with Russia, China, and the European Union had agreed to a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA.) Under this agreement, Iran would be protected from economic sanctions in exchange for accepting to subject its nuclear research program to international inspections. This agreement was widely seen as a crowning achievement of former President Barack Obama’s foreign policy but was vociferously opposed by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Zionist forces and their allies in the US. Once in power, the Trump administration decided to violate and terminate this hard-won accord, calling it a “bad deal” and it has since ramped up a new “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, a maneuver aiming to strangulate Iran’s economy which now extends as far as bribing Iranian tanker captains to surrender control of their ships to the US. With so much attention given to the war of nerves between Iran and the US, how are the US’s back-breaking sanctions impacting the Iranian population and the Iranian economy in general? To get some clarity on these issues, Malihe Razazan spoke with Iran expert and journalist at the NY Times, Farnaz Fassihi.