America has now, after the war, chosen a new arena for pressuring Iran: the economic arena. Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, has unveiled what has been called “the largest financial assault in history” against Iran, and Washington is trying to present this action to public opinion under the grandiose title of an economic D-Day. The choice of this title, rather than being a sign of strength, actually raises an important question: why has the United States, to achieve a goal it could not accomplish in the military arena, once again turned to the same economic tool that it has tested for years and that has failed to force Iran into the behavioral change it seeks?
The substance of the matter is not particularly new. Cutting off the access of financial intermediaries linked to Iran to the dollar, targeting banks and institutions cooperating with Tehran, threatening companies and countries that have economic cooperation with Iran, and pressuring China to choose between cooperation with Iran or access to the US financial system are all tools that Washington has used repeatedly over the past years. The difference this time lies more in the rhetoric and the intensity of the propaganda than in the nature of the strategy. The same policy that was introduced a decade ago under the title “maximum pressure” has now been put on the table with new packaging and more warlike vocabulary. But the fundamental issue here is that sanctions can become an effective tool for changing behavior only when the other side has not yet found its alternative routes. Iran, however, is not a country that is facing financial and commercial encirclement for the first time today.
Iran has been under banking, oil, insurance, and shipping pressure for many years, and during this same period it has formed a network of indirect methods for trade, money transfer, and oil sales. Naturally, no sanctions come without cost, and the impact of economic pressure on Iran cannot be denied, but the point of contention is something else: can this pressure lead to the same political result Washington expects? Past experience does not offer a very hopeful answer for the United States. Economic pressure can create costs, but there is a great distance between “economic pain” and “political surrender.” Sanctions fail when the cost they impose on the other side is less than the cost that side would incur by changing its political position; and precisely this point is one of the fundamental problems of America’s strategy against Iran.
Washington’s mistake is that it still separates economics from politics. It is assumed that if economic pressure increases enough, Tehran will ultimately conclude that continued resistance is no longer possible. But Iran’s calculation is not merely economic. In Tehran’s view, the issue is not just sanctions, oil exports, or access to the dollar; the issue relates to national security, political independence, and the experience of decades of foreign pressure. This is why each new stage of pressure does not necessarily lead to retreat and can even increase Iran’s incentive to develop alternative economic routes and move closer to non-Western partners.
In this context, there is also a serious contradiction. Washington, on the one hand, is trying to mobilize the global financial system against Iran and, on the other hand, cannot force the entire world economy to sacrifice its own interests for American policy. The threat to China to choose between Tehran and Washington is a clear example of this very issue. China is not a small, dependent country, but one of the world’s largest economies and one of the most important buyers of energy and trading partners of Iran. If the United States wants to extend sanctions pressure from Iran to Iran’s economic partners, it will in fact transfer part of the pressure to its own trade and financial networks, and the incentive of other countries to create mechanisms independent of the US financial system will increase.
This point has become more important after the war. The United States is no longer facing the pre-war Iran; just as the region is no longer the same region as before. The war showed that military pressure cannot necessarily lead to the political outcome Washington desires, and now the shift of pressure from the military arena to the economic arena, more than being a completely new strategy, can be seen as a sign of changing tools after the failure of the previous tool. If American military power was supposed to force Iran to accept Washington’s conditions, why should the US Treasury now have to enter the field and pursue the same goal by threatening banks, companies, and financial intermediaries?
Another important issue is that the new sanctions are not being implemented in a political vacuum. The region is redefining its relations after the war. Various countries have increasingly come to the conclusion that complete reliance on a foreign power can carry heavy costs in times of crisis. In such an atmosphere, America’s economic pressure may, contrary to its original goal, push more countries toward creating independent financial channels, increasing trade in local currencies, and developing economic relations outside the dollar orbit. This will not happen overnight, but each new wave of sanctions can strengthen the incentive for it.
On the other hand, economic pressure is not a one-way street. Iran also has tools in the region to respond and can impose costs on the interests of the United States and its allies. The Strait of Hormuz, the energy market, and the regional trade network are only a few examples of areas that could become arenas of confrontation if pressure intensifies. Therefore, Washington must factor into its calculations the reality that increasing pressure on Iran does not necessarily mean increasing pressure only on Iran; part of this pressure may return to the global energy market, America’s allies, and even the economies of Western countries.
Even the rhetoric of American officials shows that Washington is still standing at a point between threat and negotiation. When the US Treasury Secretary speaks of giving the other side an opportunity to “correct its behavior,” it is clear that the goal is not merely economic punishment; the goal is to create leverage for changing political behavior. But precisely here the main problem becomes apparent: if America’s demands are not clear, limited, and negotiable, sanctions will be perceived by Tehran not as an exit route, but as part of a strategy to pressure and weaken the country. Under such conditions, the likelihood of accepting Washington’s demands decreases, and the incentive to resist increases.
For this reason, the economic D-Day may be less the beginning of a new phase than the continuation of the same cycle in which the United States has been trapped for years: pressure, resistance, intensification of sanctions, creation of alternative routes, more pressure, and ultimately a return to the negotiating table. If Washington really imagines that increasing the intensity of sanctions alone can produce a result that previous economic and military pressures could not create, it will probably face the same miscalculation it made before the war.
America’s problem may not be a shortage of tools; the problem is an exaggerated belief in the effectiveness of tools. Washington still possesses the dollar, the financial system, and enormous sanctions capacity, but the power of sanctions turns into political power only when the other side believes it has no path other than accepting the sanctioner’s demands. Over the past years, Iran has worked precisely to eliminate this very point of pressure.
Therefore, if the goal of the economic D-Day is to force Iran into political surrender, the likelihood of its failure is not low; not because sanctions are ineffective, but because sanctions, against a country that has spent years building mechanisms to counter them, are no longer a decisive weapon. The United States may be able to increase the pressure, raise the costs, and make Iran’s economic life more difficult, but there is a difference between making conditions more difficult and changing Tehran’s strategic calculations.
If Washington does not see this difference, the economic D-Day may not be the starting point of America’s victory, but rather the beginning of another round of the same cycle that has continued for years and each time, despite heavy costs, has failed to bring Iran to the point of surrender. In that case, America will have once again changed the tool, but not the core problem.
MNA
