Trumps Iran strategy is working the ayatollah suffers as oil flows again

For months, analysts have debated whether President Donald Trump’s campaign against Iran was working.Tehran’s propaganda has tried to turn high oil prices and slow negotiations into evidence of US weakness.The reality is less flattering for the regime and its military, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps: Trump has forced them into a prolonged cold-hot war that drains their finances, strains their regional network and strips away their leverage.Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has moved back toward pre-war levels — and Iran’s domestic deterioration is increasingly difficult to dismiss.Iran’s rial fell to roughly 2.2 million to the dollar in September, from about 958,000 a year earlier.Inflation is nearing 70%, food prices have more than doubled, and unemployment is above 9%.The latest official figure put youth unemployment at 20.1%.Oil exports have also collapsed, falling to roughly 260,000 barrels a day from 1.7 million a year earlier.The bigger story is what those numbers mean for the IRGC’s power.The IRGC still must pay its own forces while financing allies and militias across Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.Washington has been squeezing that network’s financial lifelines by targeting oil exports, shadow fleets, exchange houses, front companies and the foreign buyers willing to take sanctioned Iranian crude.China matters most here: Treasury estimates that China buys about 90% of Iran’s oil exports.In April, Washington sanctioned Hengli Petrochemical’s Dalian refinery after it bought billions of dollars of Iranian petroleum, including crude linked to Iran’s armed forces.That is the difference between sanctions on paper and sanctions that bite.Iran can withstand restrictions far more easily if Chinese refiners keep buying its oil without consequences.Washington has also gone after the financial channels used to move the proceeds.Treasury says Iranian shadow-banking networks move tens of billions of dollars.In August, it moved to cut Banque Misr ...