TEHRAN — The US president's declaration of an "Economic D-Day" against Iran this week appears to signal a new strategy beyond the sanctions campaigns Tehran has learned to withstand. The significance of the threat, however, may lie less in its dramatic label than in how much the circumstances around it have changed.

Trump promised the "most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country," warning countries and institutions providing Iran with an economic "lifeline" of "TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences." Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also said he will outline the measures Monday, while warning that countries maintaining economic ties with Tehran could face severe consequences.

Washington seeks to close the channels that allowed Iran to survive earlier pressure: oil smuggling, shadow banking, front companies and trade through third countries. But this time the United States is applying that pressure to a country already battered by months of war and an increasingly effective blockade.

That raises the central question of whether Washington will now be able to turn economic pain into the political concessions it has failed to secure through decades of sanctions.