It seems that Trump administration is keen on waging war on Iran. The pattern that the White House wants to follow, it seems, will be the one it followed in Iraq. “We will apply unprecedented financial pressure on the Iranian regime. The leaders in Tehran will have no doubt about our seriousness,” Mike Pompeo –the US Secretary of State– said while speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. The words should not surprise anyone for they are coming out of Mr Pompeo’s mouth, who is the longtime Iran hawk and a staunch opponent of the Iran nuclear deal.

Pompeo makes the intentions and desires of the US clear in his first major foreign policy address. One of the many things that irk the US is Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East. Pompeo said if Iran were to abide by stricter terms, including ending its ballistic missile program and its interventions in regional conflicts from Yemen to Syria, the United States would lift its new sanctions.

The way the US is trying to maintain the order of the things is very typical of an imperialist country. Any US administration will go any length to save American interests across the world. And this attitude authenticates what Martin Luther King said about the US some fifty years ago that the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today was his own government.

Imposing sanctions is one of the most potent and lethal tools in the hands of the empire of the day, i.e., the US. We have already seen how sanctions create havoc in a country. Who can forget the intemperate remarks given by Madeline Albright when she was asked about the efficacy of sanctions imposed on Iraq that resulted in the killing of half a million Iraqi children to which she replied that the price was worth it?

Furthermore, one can infer from Mr Pompeo’s speech that other countries that feel threatened by Iran’s influence are also pushing the Trump administration to go hard on Tehran. The Secretary of State also finds it unacceptable that Iran is flexing its muscles against the neighbouring countries. Who else is Iran’s neighbour if not Saudi Arabia or Israel in this case?

It was evident that US aggression against Iran will not stop even if the deal was called off. In fact, it was the most convenient thing for the US to pull out of the agreement if it wanted to pursue its hawkish policy of containing Iran’s sphere of influence in the region. Imposing sanctions and barring other countries to do business with Iran is one of the many weapons that America has in its arsenal against Tehran.