Sanctions launched by President Donald Trump's administration could be pushing Iran into a depression and eventually it will have no choice but to negotiate with the United States because its leaders know "time is not on their side," Sen. Tom Cotton said Tuesday.
"This is the first time in 40 years that the United States has the strategic initiative against Tehran," the Arkansas Republican said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "We have imposed crushing sanctions on them as President Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal. It has run their economy into a recession, and with the new oil sanctions as well as the new ones President Trump announced yesterday, they could be heading into a depression."
And even though Iranian leaders have said the time for diplomacy is over, it ultimately faces fewer and fewer choices, given all the money the country has lost over the past 13 months.
"The point of the sanctions all along has been not just to get a better nuclear deal, which cuts off their pass to a nuclear weapon forever, but also to stop their campaign of terror throughout the Middle East," said Cotton.
The senator added that critics who think Trump showed weakness last week when he pulled out of a military strike on Iran are wrong.
"The United States has much more power than Iran does," he said. "It has always been the case ... it is especially the case over these last 13 months, as the sanctions have taken hold, and as the United States continues to grow our production of oil and gas. There is certainly no doubt that we are negotiating from a position of strength."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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