The White House says this is the Iran endgame. We’ve heard that before

August 25, 2026 — 3:30pm

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Washington: Scott Bessent gave the game away when he acknowledged the danger in taking the very step he had just told the world he was going to take.

When the US treasury secretary was asked why he was not immediately applying sanctions to Chinese banks that finance Iran’s oil trade, he replied: “We are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behaviour. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?”

Bessent and his boss, Donald Trump, spent the past week building up Monday’s announcement (US time) of crippling new sanctions against Iran and its enablers.

They said it would be “economic D-Day”. An unprecedented campaign of financial pressure. The White House even billed it as the endgame in the US-Israeli war against Iran.

US launches ‘Operation Economic Outcast’ to isolate Iran from the world

But what Bessent presented fell far short of that.........

© The Sydney Morning Herald