When Washington unveiled its economic “D-Day” on August 19, the latest tightening of the financial siege and the blockade around Iran’s ports, it believed it was applying decisive leverage. But in Tehran the move was read as something else entirely – as confirmation that the US still prefers pressure to any settlement it might one day have to honour.
Across a political system that agrees on almost nothing, the interpretation was remarkably uniform. The economic stabilisers around the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, saw the US as reneging on a deal, while Ahmad Vahidi’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders saw their own warnings about American perfidy vindicated.
