New US sanctions signal Trump desperation on Iran, experts say

The United States announced new sanctions on Iran and a slew of global entities doing business with the country on Monday, in what officials have called an “economic D-Day” and officially dubbed “Operation Economic Outcast”, in an effort to force Tehran to negotiate an end to the war.

The announcement followed repeated demands by US President Donald Trump that Iranian leaders take actions like dropping their claims over the Strait of Hormuz and return to talks to end its nuclear programme.

Nearly six months into its war on Iran, the US is seeing little impact from its military operations against the country. Crucial military munitions stocks have been depleted, and important tools used to project power globally have been redirected towards Iran.

The long-term implications of the war, analysts say, have pushed the Trump administration to try economic sanctions, but these are unlikely to compel Iran into meeting the demands.

“The United States is returning to economic pressure because military force has failed to deliver the quick victory it expected,” Negar Mortazavi, senior fellow at the US-based Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera. “The ‘economic D-Day’ declaration underscores the war’s failure so far to force Iran’s surrender or achieve Washington’s political objectives.”

“On paper, the US and Iran are a huge military mismatch,” Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), told Al Jazeera. “The US caused a lot of destruction with its munitions, but so too did Iran with its missiles and drones. So it is hard to describe the war to date as anything but a catastrophic mistake.”

While the US has killed key Iranian political and military leaders, Tehran has leveraged its geography and vast arsenal of drones and missiles, striking out at key oil and gas infrastructure in a region that has depended on drawing investors by offering stability. And Tehran’s choking of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has brought pain for consumers as far away as the US, who now pay about 40 percent more at the petrol pump than before the war.

“It was a fundamental miscalculation Trump did in the outset that the threat of war will compel the Iranians to surrender,” Trita Parsi, head of the Washington, DC-based Quincy Institute, told Al Jazeera. “Instead they fought back, and they fought back very hard.”