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US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has said that the US' economic pressure campaign on Iran is delivering results with several countries, including those in West Asia, restricting business ties with the Islamic Republic.
In August, the US Department of the Treasury had begun Operation Economic Outcast, what they described as an unprecedented, whole-of-government, economic campaign against Iran and its enablers. Following the launch of that Operation, Bessent said Treasury officials were sent around the world to urge various governments to take action against Iran. "These efforts are delivering results. Trkiye and Oman announced the cessation of Mahan Air flights to their countries. The UAE has halted all flights by Iranian airlines, and top commercial banks in the UAE and Trkiye have stopped transacting with Iran," Bessent posted on X. "We will continue working together as there is more to be done to prevent Tehran from carrying out its terrorist agenda," he further posted. According to the US Treasury Department, Operation Economic Outcast is aimed at severing the economic lifelines that sustain the Iranian regime and the IRGC. These actions they says is part of a sustained and systematic campaign to close every financial resource that supports Iran, who the US describes as the leading state sponsor of terror. The Treasury Department said it had mapped the networks, facilitators, and financial channels that Iran uses to smuggle oil, evade sanctions, and fund terror and it would be uncompromising in targeting any source of the regimes illicit revenue. Bessent also shared a post by Robin Brooks, an economist and Senior Fellow at Brookings Institute, who said that Iran now has nothing to offer the US President in terms of negotiations as it has lost control of the Strait of Hormuz, where tanker traffic is the highest in many months. Brooks says Iran's economy is in complete and utter meltdown. "The drumbeat of negativity on the blockade and sanctions more broadly isnt well informed. The economic picture in Iran is deteriorating rapidly and the US has easy ways to drastically ramp up Irans economic isolation. No regime stays in power for ever and Irans wont either. Its on much shakier ground than most people think," Brooks said in his essay on the decline of the Iranian economy. With the US President completely rejecting the Iranian proposal for a 7-day ceasefire in order to start talks on a possible peace plan, it appears that the West Asia crisis will continue with a a military escalation expected when the US Midterms end in November. (ANI)
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