Genie Godula is pleased to welcome Imran Bayoumi, Deputy Director & Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council. He sees the Trump administration’s new sanctions strategy toward Iran as an attempt to seek economic leverage where military force has so far failed to produce any results. But its effectiveness rests on several unresolved assumptions. Chief among them is whether Washington can compel China, Iran’s largest oil customer, to comply despite Beijing’s growing economic resilience. Iran, meanwhile, has decades of experience curtailing sanctions and is again threatening regional escalation.