Why the United States Can’t Quit Its Wars

30 August 2026 at 18:38

The country’s longest war came to an end exactly five years ago. Today it offers lessons for policymakers seeking to avoid an endless war in Iran.

A U.S. military helicopter over Kabul, Afghanistan, in May 2021.

Long Lines for Gas in Iran Show War and U.S. Blockade Squeezing Supply

NYT > Top Stories

By: Shirin Hakim · Leily Nikounazar and Yeganeh Torbati

30 August 2026 at 13:12

The government is struggling to meet a shortfall in fuel and is wary that higher prices at the pump could stir unrest.

A gas station in Tehran on Tuesday. Officials are urging people to clamp down on fuel use as they deal with a shortfall.

Trump’s ‘economic D-day’ against Iran risks driving the stakes even higher | Sina Toossi

The Guardian

By: Sina Toossi

30 August 2026 at 10:00

As with its approach to Hormuz, the US has mistaken applying pressure for an actual strategy. But Tehran has chips of its own to play

Donald Trump has found a new way to promise victory over Iran. After months of war have failed to force Iran’s capitulation or collapse, his administration has unveiled what the US Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, calls Operation Economic Outcast: an effort to cut it off from what remains of the global economy and threaten foreign governments, banks and companies with sanctions if they continue doing business with Tehran.

There is no question that Iran is vulnerable. Its economy has been battered by years of sanctions, war and a months-long US naval blockade. Iranian officials acknowledge that oil exports and access to foreign currency have been severely constrained. Ordinary Iranians are already enduring high inflation, currency depreciation and worsening living standards. Further economic strangulation will inflict significant additional hardship.

Sina Toossi is a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, where his work focuses on US-Iran relations, US policy toward the Middle East and nuclear issues

‘Inept, incompetent, craven’: Scott Bessent struggles to clean up the president’s mess

The Guardian

By: David Smith in Washington

29 August 2026 at 15:00

There’s little optimism about treasury secretary’s ability to handle Trump’s tariffs, Iran sanctions and colossal US debt

History remembers Gen Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the allied forces in Europe during the second world war, for his role in the D-day invasion of Normandy. Whether Scott Bessent will achieve similar posterity as the face of the “economic D-day” in Iran remains to be seen.

The US treasury secretary, already trying to manage a $40tn national debt pile, this week took charge of Donald Trump’s effort to reverse-engineer his war of choice. Whereas the US would typically take on an adversary with diplomacy, sanctions and military force, in that order, the US president started with a six-month bombing campaign and now hopes that economic isolation can finish the job.

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