A Switzerland intelligence report revealed that the Iranian regime is hoping President Donald Trump will lose in 2020, citing the Trump administration’s sanctions posed on the regime.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the Switzerland Intelligence Service of the Federation report stated that Iran will stay in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that Trump exited from in May 2018 “and wait for a new administration in Washington.” The report noted that the United States sanctions against Iran have been “strong” because “international companies have virtually no choice but to withdraw from doing business with Iran.”
The report also said that “Iran will continue its efforts to improve the precision of its longer range missiles” and “continue to support anti-Israeli forces in the region, albeit with much less financial commitment.”
Tensions between the U.S. and Iran have escalated recently, as in June, Iran seized a couple of oil British oil tankers and shot down a U.S. drone.
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow John Hannah argued in a May 31 Foreign Policy piece that the downward spiral of Iran’s economy due to U.S. sanctions suggests that the regime might not be able to wait out Trump.
“The Iranian economy was already forecast to shrink by up to 6 percent in 2019, with inflation raging and the currency having lost almost two-thirds of its value,” Hannah wrote. “The U.S. push to end all oil sales now threatens to tip the economy into a death spiral unlike any the regime has experienced before—and all at a time when by many accounts its legitimacy in the eyes of the Iranian people has eroded substantially.”
Hannah added that Iran’s recent aggression is due to the regime attempting the U.S. cease its “maximum pressure campaign” against Iran. If Iran fails in this regard then “Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will face an excruciating choice: either revert to a policy of trying to ride out the ever-intensifying U.S. economic tsunami that threatens to damage his regime, perhaps even fatally, or swallow hard, lose some face, and figure out a way to take Trump up on his repeated offers to open negotiations,” Hannah argued.
