In Reply to: Monday, Monday. Can't trust that day.* posted by mh on August 24, 2026 at 09:17:56
Washington is betting its entire Middle East strategy on a century-old delusion.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just declared an “Economic D-Day” designed to completely collapse the Iranian regime and force a swift end to the six-month-old Iran War. The administration promises that unprecedented financial strangulation will achieve what military boots on the ground cannot: absolute capitulation without an open-ended quagmire.
It is a seductive promise. It is also flatly contradicted by history.
My 30 years of research on wartime blockades and economic sanctions shows a brutal reality: maximum economic pressure alone has not won a single major war since 1918.
From the post-WWI blockades to modern conflicts, massive economic sieges consistently fail to break a regime’s political will. Instead, they often trigger a predictable, catastrophic reaction.