larry johnson on iran; 

 

Last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promised something spectacular. “Watch this space,” he told a television interviewer, previewing “measures like have never been seen in the history of the economic isolation of a country.” Paired with the ongoing US naval blockade of Iran’s ports — a “one-two punch,” in his phrasing — the coming sanctions are meant to force Tehran’s capitulation after nearly six months of war. Ambassador Mike Waltz gave the effort a name: “Operation Economic Fury.”

The ambition is real. So is the problem with it. Bessent is reaching for a tool whose power depends on a world that no longer exists. The economic isolation that once brought Iran to the negotiating table was possible because the walls around Iran were sealed on every side — and, just as importantly, because the money still had to move through pipes the United States controlled. Today those walls have doors — to Russia, to China, and, since this spring, to Pakistan — and the money has found a channel that bypasses Washington’s plumbing entirely. The countries holding the doors open are precisely the ones whose cooperation once made the old sanctions bite. The most useful way to understand why “unprecedented” pressure may nonetheless fail is to compare the board Bessent is playing on to the one his predecessors played on a decade ago.........more............