Sanctions busting

THE Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not happy. “Anyone who has ever trusted the Americans was eventually slapped by them,” he declared earlier this month. “The experience of nuclear talks proved that even if we compromise, the United States will not stop its destructive role.”This was the latest in a stream of attacks by Iranian hardliners on the deal reached a year ago. Some of this is politics: they never wanted the deal and have tried to sabotage it in order to damage their rival, Iran’s reformist president, Hassan Rohani. But the charge that the West has failed to honour its side of the bargain—lifting most sanctions in return for strong curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme—is growing. It is also wrong.