On Friday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” network anchor Chris Wallace questioned if additional sanctions will be enough to “break Iran’s will,” even though Iran has continued its aggressions despite the Trump administration’s strong sanctions.
Wallace said, “I thought the presentations by the two secretaries, Mnuchin and Pompeo, was very forceful, very persuasive. Clearly, they and the president they work for mean business in terms of continuing to tighten the screws on Iran. I don’t have any doubt that these sanctions — I’m no expert, but I assume they are going to make it even more difficult for people in Iran to business. The question, really, is strategy. Will it work? As was pointed out, the two secretaries briefed in that room last September and said at that time that the sanctions were the strongest that they had ever imposed on any country. We have seen all of the activity by Iran since then. We have also seen Iran continue step-by-step to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. Now they just announced they will pull out even further in terms of limitations on fuel enrichment, the stockpiling of nuclear fuel. I guess the question becomes, do we really think that this is the step? These are the sanctions that break Iran’s will, or will it continue?”
He added, “Also, the question, of course, we have our partners that also signed the JCPOA— the Iran nuclear deal—like Britain, France, Germany. Are they going to come on our side or continue to try and find workarounds to continue to do business? There is no question that Donald Trump means business, and the secretaries there mean business. The question —and I don’t have an answer for it. Is this going to be the step that breaks Iran’s will and get them to say no more we will get to the table and talk about not only the nuclear program but also their maligned behavior in the world?”
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