Each of these escalation points appear designed to bait Mr. Trump into reinforcing the false narrative that there are only two choices when it comes to Iran: war, or a return to the flawed 2015 nuclear deal. If Iran could make war seem imminent, so the thought goes, it might indirectly force Mr. Trump into relieving sanctions (assuring the regime’s survival), perhaps even without entering direct negotiations.

To his credit, President Trump recognized those traps for what they were and exercised strategic patience. Indeed, Mr. Trump could have responded to each provocation with a proportional military response. After a day of flag waving, the national mood might well have shifted against Mr. Trump, forcing him to offer sanctions relief prematurely without achieving any long-term national security objectives.

This may indeed have been what Qassim Suleimani thought he would achieve following the killing of an American contractor and an attack on the United States embassy in Iraq. Instead, Mr. Trump surprised Iran by striking its top terror strategist, and then surprised it once again by responding to Iran’s ballistic missile retaliation with a return to strategic patience. Mr. Trump emerges from the past few weeks in a stronger position. The maximum pressure campaign remains fully intact with political space to increase the sanctions pressure even further. Iran faces a backlash at home and abroad after its downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet. Mr. Trump’s critics who warned that his policies would spark a third world war now seem to have gotten ahead of themselves.

Many wrongly believe the United States has already reached full “maximum pressure” on Iran. In truth, several critical pressure points remain untapped. The administration this month rolled out fresh sanctions targeting Iran’s construction, mining and manufacturing sectors, along with the first step in a crackdown on violators of American sanctions on Iranian metals and petrochemicals. Sanctions targeting Iranian state shipping lines are set to take effect in June and could be expedited for more immediate impact.

Another potential target: Iran’s financial sector in its entirety. In 2018, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, and Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, proposed legislation imposing sanctions on Iran’s financial sector, which the United States recently determined to be a “primary jurisdiction of money-laundering concern.” The effect could be destabilizing, immediately cutting off all non-sanctioned banks inside Iran from international commerce, forcing their disconnection from the global financial messaging system known as SWIFT and rendering all remaining foreign exchange reserves held outside Iran inaccessible for any purpose.