The U.S. Treasury Department’s newly launched Operation Economic Outcast against Iran could take anger toward the regime to a “boiling point” and force Tehran into the one situation it “fears the most,” experts tell FOX Business.
The aggressive strategy, labeled as an “Economic D-Day” and initiated under the direction of President Donald Trump, aims to “tighten the noose and block every potential source of revenue that funds the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian regime,” according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The Trump administration also will implement secondary sanctions to pressure nations into severing ties with Tehran, while simultaneously blacklisting nearly 60 people, businesses and vessels involved in illicit trade.
“Anger is simmering just below boiling point,” Kasra Aarabi, the director of IRGC Research at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told FOX Business, referencing the mass protests that unfolded inside Iran earlier this year. “And these economic measures, that tightening the economic noose, could take it to boiling point.”
“The regime wants to absolutely avoid a situation whereby protests take place against it, and the U.S. has military assets in the region. Because it fears — the one thing it fears the most — is protests with air cover,” he added.
US AIMS FOR ‘ECONOMIC ASPHYXIATION’ OF IRANIAN REGIME WITH NEW WAVE OF SECONDARY SANCTIONS
Aarabi said the Iranian regime had already been “suffering economically” prior to the launch of Operation Economic Outcast, with the U.S. military blockading Iranian ports.
“The blockade, the U.S.-imposed blockade, is working, and their oil exports are next to none; they’re zero… that is affecting their ability to, first of all, fund the military in the regime,” he continued. “The senior officials of the Islamic Republic have been absolutely clear that any money that comes into their hands will go to the military. The military is the top priority. So tightening the noose is exactly what the U.S. should be doing. And the regime is panicking.
“I have that from sources in Iran itself. Prior to ‘Economic D-Day,’ they were scrambling,” he added. “They were scrambling to look for alternative avenues, given the fact that the southern corridor, the Persian Gulf, was completely shut off for their oil exports, for the transportation of other key goods.”
Jason Brodsky, the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, told FOX Business that “Operation Economic Outcast is a different iteration of the maximum pressure campaign which has been ongoing for many years now.”
“This has been an unprecedented situation because right now there’s the synchronization of economic and military power from the United States with the launching of an unprecedented economic blockade against the Iranian regime,” he said. “So all of this is going to be contributing to the dire financial situation and picture that the Iranian regime confronts.”
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“Without a doubt, the Treasury Department’s Operation Economic Outcast will deprive the Iranian regime of resources that it would use to otherwise fund its terror proxies throughout the region,” Brodsky added. “I’m talking Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, the Iraqi Shia militias, so that actually saves lives if the Iranian regime is not able to foment and pay its terror apparatus. And that’s why it’s fundamentally in the U.S. national security interest for Operation Economic Outcast to be carried out robustly and to the fullest extent.”
UANI on Wednesday also released its 10 recommendations for Operation Economic Outcast, which Brodsky described as policy recommendations “aimed to provide some meat on the bones” of the U.S. Treasury’s campaign.
They call for the U.S. to “sanction every Iranian bank, financial institution, and exchange house, including all foreign branches that provide material support to the IRGC, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, or designated terrorist proxies,” and to “fully target Iran’s ‘Ghost Armada’ of foreign-owned vessels,” among other measures.
The developments come as Iran continues to attack ships in the Strait of Hormuz during Operation Epic Fury, which the U.S. launched against Tehran on Feb. 28.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre (UKMTO) said Monday that an oil tanker was left disabled after an “unknown projectile” struck the vessel while it was traveling in the Strait of Hormuz.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for that incident, but Iran has been blamed by Middle Eastern countries for recent attacks on tankers affiliated with the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned energy company.
Brodsky said Wednesday that Iran has been “attacking ships for many years, long before the U.S. launched Operation Epic Fury.”
“Iran has been trying to sabotage commercial vessels within the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz area. So this has been a long history of Iranian sabotage. And, ultimately, it’s going to have to come to regime change in Iran for the Iranian government to behave differently. Unfortunately, that’s the reality we’re confronting,” he said.
FOX Business’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
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