US President Obama imagined he could end his second term with an arms-control detente with Iran the way former US president Ronald Reagan did with the Soviet Union. It looks instead that his nuclear deal has inspired Iran toward new military aggression and greater anti-American hostility, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The US and United Nations both say Iran is already violating UN resolutions that bar Iran from testing ballistic missiles. Iran has conducted two ballistic-missile tests since the nuclear deal was signed in July, most recently in November. The missiles seem capable of delivering nuclear weapons with relatively small design changes.

The White House initially downplayed the missile tests, but this week it did an odd flip-flop on whether to impose new sanctions in response. On Wednesday it informed Congress that it would target a handful of Iranian companies and individuals responsible for the ballistic-missile program. Then it later said it would delay announcing the sanctions, which are barely a diplomatic rebuke in any case, much less a serious response to an arms-control violation.

Under the nuclear accord, Iran will soon receive $100 billion in unfrozen assets as well as the ability to court investors who are already streaming to Tehran. Sanctioning a few names is feckless by comparison, and Iran is denouncing even this meager action as a US violation of the nuclear deal.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded to the sanctions reports on Thursday by ordering his defense minister to accelerate Iran’s missile program. "Your move, Obama," the paper said.

Opponents of the nuclear accord predicted this. Obama says the deal restricts Iranian action, but it does far more to restrict the ability of the US to respond to Iranian aggression. If the US takes tough action in response to Iran’s missile tests or other military provocations, Iran can threaten to stop abiding by the nuclear deal. It knows the world has no appetite for restoring serious sanctions, and that Obama will never admit his deal is failing. The mullahs view the accord as a license to become more militarily aggressive.

Further proof came Wednesday when US Central Command acknowledged that Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels last week fired several rockets that landed within 1,500 yards of the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. A Revolutionary Guard spokesman Thursday denied the incident but a day earlier the semiofficial Tabnak news agency quoted an unnamed Iranian official as saying the rockets were launched to warn the US Navy away from “a forbidden zone” in the Arab Gulf.

Source: MENA