I lived in Europe for years, studying World War II not only in books but on the ground, walking battlefields and cemeteries and listening to veterans who had fought their way across the continent.
For America and our European allies, D-Day was an all-in fight. Survival was at stake. There was no ambiguity about the enemy or the objective.
So, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called his new maximum-pressure campaign against Iran an “Economic D-Day,” a term he used this week, one question immediately came to mind:
Where is V-E Day?
The real D-Day came on June 6, 1944. Nazi Germany did not surrender until May 8, 1945. That was eleven months later.
D-Day was not victory. It began the final campaign toward victory.
Bessent deserves credit for launching something much more ambitious than another sanctions package. The administration calls it Operation Economic Outcast: an effort to sever Irans remaining economic lifelines in shipping, aviation, technology, gold and digital assets, with secondary sanctions threatened against foreign enablers. About 60 individuals, entities and vessels were targeted in the opening round.
TRUMP THREATENS ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES FOR ANY NATION AIDING IRAN
And there is an important difference from President Donald Trumps first-term “maximum pressure” campaign: the U.S. Navy.
Previous sanctions made Iranian oil hard to finance, insure and sell. Today, unlike the first-term campaign, the administration is pairing financial pressure with what AP reports is a Navy-enforced blockade of Iranian ports.
The administration hopes to deepen a decline already evident in Iranian oil shipments to China. Iranian oil shipments to China fell to about 534,000 barrels a day in August, down from 823,000 in July and from a 2026 peak of roughly 1.58 million. Chinese refiners are scrambling for alternative supplies.
Iran is hurting badly.
TRUMP BETS ECONOMIC PRESSURE CAN SQUEEZE IRAN AS REGIMES OWN FAILURES DEEPEN THE PAIN
Its currency has been battered and its infrastructure has been damaged. Irans own Statistical Centre reports annual inflation reached 88% in July, with food prices up 128% from a year earlier. The regime
