On Iran, Trump is Obama 2.0

The announcement on Sunday that Iran had sentenced Xiyue Wang, an American citizen and Princeton graduate student who was arrested last summer while doing research in the country, to 10 years in prison for being a spy for American and British intelligence, came the day before President Donald Trump was scheduled to recertify the Iran nuclear deal that President Barack Obama had reached in 2015. Mr. Trump had campaigned against the agreement; Mr. Wang’s seizure, like so many other aggressive actions that the Iranian regime has engaged in since the nuclear deal was concluded, should have, some of his supporters surely thought, obliged the White House to abandon the Iran policy advanced by his predecessor.

No such luck. And given the administration’s decision Monday to issue only minor sanctions against the Islamic Republic, while recertifying Tehran’s adherence to the atomic accord, it’s doubtful that President Trump intends to seek Mr. Wang’s release any more vigorously than had the Obama administration…

The United States has always been in a difficult spot in dealing with the clerical regime’s propensity for hostage-taking. Doing nothing or paying ransom just invite more abuse. American citizens should think twice about visiting Iran. But allowing another nation to have open season on American citizens is outrageous. Washington has never tried serious punishment, like blistering sanctions against the country’s banking and energy sectors. Other factors — the price of oil, the Europeans, dreams of engagement, nuclear diplomacy — always seem to get in the way. Nor has the United States had the stomach to play rough with the Revolutionary Guards: they take our citizens and yet we don’t send Delta Force to nab their senior commanders operating abroad.

Mr. Wang’s arrest certainly signals the need for a different approach.