Alan Eyre negotiated the nuclear deal and spent five years as the State Department's Persian-language spokesman, which makes his reading of Iranian calculation worth more than most.
His diagnosis of Economic Outcast is a single sentence of coercion theory.
Sanctions extract concessions only when the target expects relief for complying.
Iran expects the opposite, that any softened red line invites more.
"chumming the water for the sharks"
He also reports something nobody else has said this week.
Two weeks ago, Tehran was still willing to implement the Islamabad memorandum, a deal he calls very favorable to them.
In their telling, Washington never honored Article Five and pushed traffic onto the Omani route, and the IRGC-led leadership has since decided Washington hasn't yet absorbed enough pain to be let off the hook.
Their nuclear infrastructure is gone. The proxies aren't worth the squeeze.
Hormuz is the only pillar of deterrence left standing, and Alan says it was handed to them.
On reopening, he's brutal about timelines.
London insurers need months of quiet before rates fall, and traffic only follows the rates.
Nobody volunteers to be first through the door.
@alaneyre1
