Trump’s ‘Maximum Pressure’ Won’t Make Iran Yield
Trump’s ‘Maximum Pressure’ Won’t Make Iran Yield
Iran: Gaza, “Axis of Resistance” and Nuclear Calculations
Iran: Gaza, “Axis of Resistance” and Nuclear Calculations
Op-Ed / Middle East & North Africa 1 minute

Trump’s ‘Maximum Pressure’ Won’t Make Iran Yield

The one thing Tehran would find more intolerable than the crushing impact of sanctions is raising the white flag because of them.

A magnificent fresco adorns the main pavilion of the royal palace in the Iranian city of Isfahan, depicting the 16th-century Battle of Chaldiran, fought between the Turkish-Ottoman and Persian-Safavid empires. The fresco appears to show the Persian army victorious, having crushed its Turkish adversary. The truth is that Chaldiran marked a decisive victory for the Ottomans, who went on to annex eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq. But what the self-serving historical distortion suggests is not shame of defeat but pride in the heroic valor with which the Iranians resisted a foe that outnumbered them and, unlike them, possessed heavy artillery. Donald Trump’s administration, which has made bringing Iranians to their knees the cornerstone of its Mideast policy half a millennium later, should draw a lesson from the battle and the way the Persians digested defeat.

Continue reading in The Atlantic

Subscribe to Crisis Group’s Email Updates

Receive the best source of conflict analysis right in your inbox.