Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s much-awaited Iran speech yesterday was symbolically important but lacking in new substance. The Trump administration, as Pompeo put it, will one way or another force Iran’s Islamist regime into a corner, but he did not specify how or to what end.

Why it matters: Pompeo’s speech had for weeks been touted as the moment Washington would unveil its grand strategy to end the Islamic Republic, but its approach is still unclear. What’s clear, at least for now, is that the main U.S. tool of pressure against Tehran remains the imposition of stiff sanctions.