“US Israel Iran War”

Iranian state-affiliated TV Channel 3 has released a video threatening US President Donald Trump’s son, Barron Trump, detailing specific surveillance against him and offering a $10 million reward for his death, Iran International reported on Monday.

Sorry no English version yet.

Iran has officially put a $10 MILLION bounty on Barron Trump!

How do you think President Trump will react to THIS?! pic.twitter.com/5Vky8f7vIq

— Conservative Brief (@ConservBrief) August 24, 2026

h/t Patti Jo

Scott Bessent has said the US is “entering the endgame” in its war with Iran.

The US treasury secretary said the Trump administration would unleash “the greatest financial offensive” against Tehran before unveiling a new economic pressure campaign.

The treasury secretary is expected to announce the new measures at a press conference at 2pm EDT (7pm BST) on Monday.

Iran has threatened to strike American businesses if Donald Trump launches his “economic D-Day” campaign to force Tehran to accept a deal to end the war.

Mohsen Rezai, the head of Iran’s national security council, also warned allies of the US that they would be considered enemies, and their interests harmed, if they joined the US president’s financial warfare.

Mr Trump said on Wednesday that Iran would face “economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale”.

Iran has stymied the United States for the moment, even though, by almost any conventional measure, it should be decisively defeated. The American people grudgingly believed their president when he said the conflict would be over quickly. Unfortunately, the enemy got their vote.

Let there be no mistake: Iran has not achieved any victory, much less a military one. It has suffered hundreds of billions in damage and a decimated pool of former leaders. Yet, like a punch-drunk fighter, it still stands. Don’t confuse defiance for victory, though.

Psychologist Dr Nezhat Farnoody sits in her well-appointed office in Irvine, an upscale, modern city about an hour and a half south of Los Angeles. She and her daughter, Nelly (who is also a psychologist), spend much of their time listening to Southern California’s Persian elite, a community caught between a country that welcomed and nurtured them and their mother country, Iran, with which the US is waging an on-again, off-again war.

Iran appears to be losing its grip on the Strait of Hormuz while traffic through the critical waterway has exploded by nearly 400% over the last two weeks — as ships increasingly use a US-backed corridor to cross.

Nearly 200 ships navigated the strait last week, up from 150 the previous week and just 40 two weeks earlier, according to data from the UK Maritime Trade Operations Center.

The surge brings total traffic along the passage route to about 20% of pre-war levels, through which roughly 20% of the world’s seaborne oil flowed in peacetime.

War, Clausewitz , is the continuation of politics by violent means. But violence is only one tool in a nation’s war arsenal. Other tools include economics, cyber warfare, diplomacy, information warfare (what used to be called propaganda, psychological warfare, and disinformation), espionage, counterintelligence, and subversion. Americans are an impatient people, but impatience in war can lead to the loss of political and popular support — which is essential for democracies to achieve victory.

The main focus in confronting Iran’s regime and its sponsorship of terrorism has shifted toward economic sanctions and a naval blockade of Iranian ports. This pressure, driving oil exports to multi-year lows and squeezing the regime’s primary source of hard currency, constrains the resources available for ballistic missiles, proxies, and internal repression. Yet it is a dangerous delusion to believe that sanctions and blockade by themselves will change the regime’s fundamentalist and Islamist ideology or force a fundamental shift in its behavior.

The Iranian regime’s only objective is to stay in power beyond the Trump Administration.

Iran threatened “devastating” consequences if the US moves ahead with imposing crippling sanctions against the regime — after the Trump administration pledged to hit the Islamic Republic with the toughest financial penalties in history.

“With preparedness across land, sea, air, air defense and cyberspace, Iran’s armed forces will respond to the enemy’s new threats with crushing, punishing and devastating responses,” Major General Ali Abdollahi, chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, said on Iranian media.

“This is going to be the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world, and we are going to them and saying, you are either with us or against us,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an appearance on CNBC. “If you insist on doing business with them — either transferring money, buying their oil, doing seaborne ship transport first — then the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. government will put its full might and force toward enforcing against you.”

“We are going to squash the economy of this murderous regime, which will curtail their ability to project power through their proxies,” Bessent boasted. “So it is time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision.”

Treasury Secretary Bessent on Iran:

We are going to have the toughest sanctions in history, and I will tell you, this will work.

It worked in Venezuela once we put up the blockade. It is working in Cuba right now, and it is going to work in Iran, and we are going to collapse… pic.twitter.com/58PDaOM12x

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) August 20, 2026

President Donald Trump is not yet ready to bomb the ayatollahs to the hell they so richly deserve, but he is implementing major economic sanctions and blockades against the Iranian regime.

After confirming that his administration was no longer in any talks with the Iranian regime and teasing the idea of claiming the Strait of Hormuz for America, Trump issued a new update on Wednesday. This time, he detailed his next move in the conflict with Tehran.

s President Donald Trump announced, as of August 18, peace talks with Iran had terminated, it will be interesting to see if he pursues a necessary tact markedly different from how Japan surrendered at the end of World War II.

After the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, as far as its Emperor Hirohito was concerned, it was the final nail in the coffin of reality. It was he, and not the military, that sought an end to the war. Although his military pleaded with the emperor to fight on to the last man, he understood the high price of doing so. Despite the military’s “never surrender” mindset, its loyalty to the emperor took priority.

President Donald Trump shot down any indication that the United States is negotiating with Iran after the 60-day memorandum of understanding expired this week.

“There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the president wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated.”

Iran has offered its soldiers and citizens $30,000 (£22,000) for killing or capturing any American troops, with the reward doubled if a woman completes the mission.

Amir Hatami, Tehran’s army chief, said on Sunday the plan had been drawn up following a “large number of requests” to support the war, which shows no signs of a diplomatic breakthrough.