While defenders of the 2015 nuclear agreement remain attached to the argument that the gradual tightening of U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic will not achieve results, recent reports show that, to the contrary, they’ve already done so. Majid Rafizadeh writes:

The sanctions have . . . imposed significant pressure on the Iranian government to the extent that it is cutting funding to its allies, [proxy] militias, and terror groups. In an unprecedented move, on April 17 the state-controlled Syrian newspaper al-Watan made an astonishing revelation when it reported that Iran had halted its credit line to the Syrian government. This occurred one day after the Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, visited Syria. . . .

Since Donald Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iranian nuclear deal, Iran’s oil revenues and exports have been steadily falling. Before the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear deal and began taking a tougher stance toward the ruling clerics of Iran, Iran was exporting more than 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd). Iran’s oil exports have since dropped to approximately 1.1 million bpd, a decline of more than 50 percent.

According to the latest reports, U..S sanctions have also caused Iran to cut funds to its militias in Syria. Iran’s militants are not getting their salaries and benefits, making it extremely difficult for them to continue fighting and destabilizing the region. . . .

Feeling the pressure of sanctions on Iran, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran’s proxy, Hizballah, has also called on his group’s fundraising arm “to provide the opportunity for jihad with money and also to help with this ongoing battle.”

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.