President Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, has promised to take Iran to the cleaners. Trump’s four- to five-week victory is in the rearview mirror. He failed to accomplish any of his objectives.

Iran still has its “nuclear dust” hidden away, maybe at Pickaxe Mountain, maybe elsewhere. Iran has an abundance of advanced missiles stocked in underground tunnels. It has closed the Strait of Hormuz as Trump hallucinates for the sake of his gargantuan ego that it is open and millions of barrels of crude move through every day unimpeded.

Bessent, a former Soros Fund Management and Brown Brothers Harriman associate, is tasked with waging economic war against Iran, now that Trump’s military foray failed and the prospect of the president admitting defeat is a bridge too far.

On September 1, Bessent served up a colorful anecdote.

“In my life, I have killed lots of poisonous snakes,” he told Trump’s favorite network, Fox News. “I grew up near a swamp. We had a lot of poisonous snakes come into our yard and we cut off their heads with a machete, a boat paddle and a rake. That’s what we’re doing to this regime.”

“You’d cut the head off, but the tail kept wiggling. You have to bury the head of the snake,” he added while attending the G20 summit in Miami. “We are burying the head of the Iranian snake. The snake doesn’t know it’s dead yet, but it will stop wiggling when the sun goes down. The Iranian regime, they are demised. And they will figure it out.”

Bessent officially announced the start of Operation Economic Outcast, a Treasury campaign launched at Trump’s behest to cut off Iran’s economic “lifelines” and target the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The operation aims to eliminate all financial resources that support Iran. Trump’s economic war plans to target cryptocurrency and related transactions, limit gold trade, restrict access to advanced technology, sanction aviation-related activities, and target shipping operations.

Furthermore, the Treasury put foreign governments that do business with Iran on notice. The campaign broadens secondary sanctions and will limit access to the American financial system to nations that continue to engage in commerce with Iran. The Treasury said that no entity is exempt from the sanctions.

Bessent made a point of saying China, the largest consumer of Iranian oil, will not be exempt from the sanctions. China imports more than 90% of Iran’s oil. Other countries that import oil from Iran include Japan, India, South Korea, and Italy, to name a few. China announced it will not follow the sanctions.

“We are telling friends and foes, do not deal with this evil regime,” he warned. “We know who you are—you know who you are. If we have to, we’ll put you out of business. Stay away… we are going to sever every tie they have from the outside world. This is all hands on deck,” he added.

In addition to attempts to strangle Iran’s oil exports, Bessent said the United States will go after Iranian accounts in the British Virgin Islands. He insisted that the IRGC is involved in money laundering.

Unlike drug cartel money laundered by banks, including Wachovia, and the CIA, Iran’s money laundering industry has evolved over the past few decades due to international sanctions that have severed its ties with the formal global financial system. Consequently, Tehran has developed intricate money laundering and sanctions-evasion networks to sustain its economy.

“I will say it on worldwide TV, just so you know: we know where in the British Virgin Islands your accounts are at these trust companies,” Bessent told Fox News. “We know the $100 million houses you have around the world, and we are going to freeze those.”

In March, Bessent indicated the United States will steal Iranian oil stranded at sea.

“By temporarily unlocking this existing supply for the world, the United States will quickly bring about 140 million barrels of oil to global markets, increasing the amount of energy worldwide and helping to ease temporary supply pressures caused by Iran,” he said.

If sanctions fail to work, Bessent said violence may be necessary.

“My experience over the past 20 or 30 years is that in general people like having their heads attached to their necks,” he told NewsMax. “Whether they turn on each other, whether the people turn on them, or whether something happens to them in a military action,” he said.

Although Treasury sanctions will inflict economic pain, they are unlikely to bring down the government. It should be noted that Iran has thus far endured decades of economic sanctions. The Islamic Republic has adapted to economic warfare through oil smuggling, establishing front companies, and arranging barter arrangements, in addition to establishing non-dollar settlements, offshore banking, and re-export networks.

China serves as a deterrent to the Treasury’s ambitious plan to further weaken Iran in lieu of a successful military campaign. Experts believe that the new sanctions against Iran may not be effective, especially if they fail to target major financial institutions in countries like China, which is a crucial trading partner for Iran. Iran has historically demonstrated resilience in coping with sanctions, indicating that the impact of these sanctions may be limited.

China and Russia have labeled US sanctions as “discriminatory” in the context of global trade and detrimental to the world economy. They argue that such measures are illegal and violate international law. While economic sanctions are recognized as a tool for influencing state behavior without military intervention, their legality hinges on whether they are unilateral or authorized by the UN Security Council. While the UN has imposed sanctions on Iran, critics argue they violate the UN Charter.

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Kurt Nimmo is a journalist, author, and geopolitical analyst, New Mexico, United States. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Visit the author’s blog.

Featured image: Official portrait of Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent (Public Domain)

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