US Envoy for Iran Admits: Trump’s ‘Maximum Pressure’ Campaign Failed Miserably

By Staff, Agencies

The US special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, admitted that the so-called ‘maximum pressure’ campaign pushed by the former president Donald Trump's administration against the Islamic Republic “failed miserably” and “hurt US interests.”

Speaking on a television show hosted by MSNBC journalist Mehdi Hasan, Malley said Iran’s nuclear program accelerated only after Trump launched his ‘maximum pressure’ campaign.

Malley is Biden’s point man for Iran, tasked with reviving the 2015 nuclear accord that Trump unilaterally abandoned in 2018. He was part of the US negotiating team that worked out the deal in 2015.

Asked whether the US should be the first to extend an olive branch and rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [JCPOA], also known as Iran nuclear deal, the envoy moved the goalposts quickly.

“We said very clearly we are prepared to come back into the deal if they’re prepared to do their part,” Malley said, adding that the US “will lift sanctions” if Iran returns to full compliance with its nuclear obligations under the JCPOA.

Malley, who had been in Vienna as Iran and P4+1 countries engaged in marathon negotiations to resurrect the dying deal, said the “ideas” were put on the table about removing sanctions that Trump had imposed on Iran “in violation of the deal.”

He also slammed the Trump administration’s decision to assassinate Iran’s top anti-terror commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani, saying it “made America less safe.”

Martyr Leader Soleimani, the celebrated anti-Daesh [Arabic for ‘ISIS/ISIL’ terrorist group] commander, was assassinated in a US airstrike near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020. It led to heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington.