The decline of Iran into failed state territory

Power Line:

I confess that even after I boarded the Trump train–basically, when no alternative was left–I didn’t imagine that Trump would prove to be a foreign policy genius. But isn’t that what we are seeing? Improving our trade deals, finally doing something about North Korea, standing up to Putin’s Russia, pushing back against Chinese theft of intellectual property, exposing anti-Semitism and fecklessness in the U.N., getting more contributions from NATO allies–it’s been a heck of a year and a half!

Then there is Iran. Barack Obama pursued a bizarre Iran policy, from the first days of his administration, when he went on Iranian television. His view, apparently, was that strained relations between the U.S. and Iran were mostly our fault–never mind that incident at the embassy that stretched on for more than a year–and really, the U.S. and the mullahs’ “Death to America” Iran are natural allies. So he tried to build Iran up as a regional power, supplying pallets of cash and ultimately something like $100 billion in exchange for promises that can be revoked at will.

Donald Trump’s policy is, thankfully, entirely different. He has withdrawn the U.S. from Obama’s foolish agreement, and is imposing new sanctions on Iran’s radical regime. Most important, probably, he is rallying a natural coalition of Sunni Gulf states plus Israel to check Iran’s (and Russia’s) ambitions in the region.

How is it going so far? AFP reports:

Iran’s currency hit a record low on Sunday of 100,000 rials to the dollar amid a deepening economic crisis and the imminent return of full US sanctions.

100,000 rials to the dollar isn’t Venezuela territory, but it is getting there. Just a few more orders of magnitude to go!

The rial has lost half its value against the dollar in just four months, having broken through the 50,000-mark for the first time in March.

In other words, in response to Trump’s policies.

The government attempted to fix the rate at 42,000 in April, and threatened to crack down on black market traders.

Good luck with that. Price fixing has never worked anywhere, but socialists and mullahs will never give up on it.

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There is more.

Iran is now trying some of the same tricks Venezuela did to avoid a collapse which only sped up the decline of a once rich nation.  The mullahs are too attached to their nukes and their proxy wars to give them up even if they lead to a certain bankruptcy.  Every day it becomes clearer that Trump's approach is more likely to solve the Iran problem than the Obama one was.