The coming week may prove decisive.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s new strategy is depriving Tehran of money, military options and dependable allies. The coming weeks may force the regime to choose between a serious agreement and an accelerating internal crisis.

Iran’s leaders appear determined to prove they can withstand anything President Trump throws at them. They may soon discover that defiance is not a substitute for money.

After six months of intermittent warfare, Trump has shifted toward a strategy that may prove more effective than continuous bombing. American forces still strike Iranian military assets when Tehran attacks commercial shipping or U.S. facilities. But the administration’s principal weapon is now economic: a naval blockade combined with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s Operation Economic Outcast.

The objective is straightforward. Iran’s government needs oil revenue and access to foreign currency to pay its security forces, import military technology and sustain the patronage networks that keep the Islamic Republic in power. Bessent’s campaign aims to close every significant route through which that money moves.

Early evidence suggests it is working.

Iranian oil exports reportedly have fallen from approximately 1.7 million barrels per day to around 260,000. Imports and exports are down sharply. Inflation is approaching 70 percent, while the rial has fallen to roughly 2.2 million per dollar on the unofficial market. Iranian businesses are struggling to obtain hard currency, workers are losing jobs and imported necessities are increasingly unaffordable.

These figures are estimates from an opaque wartime economy, but Iranian officials themselves acknowledge the direction. President Masoud Pezeshkian has blamed sanctions and the blockade for the country’s deepening economic misery. Other Iranian sources admit that the familiar methods of disguising oil shipments and moving money through foreign banks are becoming harder to use.

Operation Economic Outcast is still relatively new. Its effects should become more pronounced as Treasury identifies additional front companies, exchange houses, cryptocurrency channels and foreign facilitators. Ships already carrying Iranian oil may complete some transactions, but replacing blocked customers and financial intermediaries will become progressively more difficult.

Iran’s political alliances offer less protection than its leaders once imagined.

At the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, China, Russia and other members condemned American and Israeli strikes. Yet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian came away with little more than diplomatic reassurance. His encounter with Chinese President Xi Jinping was unusually low-profile, producing no announced rescue package, weapons commitment or pledge to defy the American blockade.

China remains Iran’s most important trading partner, but Beijing is behaving like a calculating customer rather than a loyal ally. Xi values discounted Iranian oil and welcomes anything that distracts the United States. He does not appear willing to jeopardize Chinese banks, shipping companies or access to Western markets to save Tehran.

China also has more valuable relationships with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It needs dependable energy supplies — not an Iranian government threatening the waterway through which much of Asia’s oil travels. Beijing may continue allowing smaller intermediaries to trade with Iran, but its reluctance to confront the United States directly is ominous for the Islamic Republic.

Russia is an even less dependable savior. Moscow reportedly has supplied Iran with intelligence, satellite imagery and cyber assistance. Such support can make Iranian attacks more dangerous, but it cannot stabilize the rial or protect Iran’s military infrastructure from American airpower. Russia remains consumed by its own war and has enormous demands for weapons, personnel and money. Vladimir Putin may want Iran to survive as an anti-American power, but he has shown little inclination to enter a direct conflict on its behalf.

Iran therefore has political sympathizers, commercial partners and militant proxies — but no ally apparently prepared to guarantee the regime’s survival.

Trump’s decision to encourage the Iranian people to rise against their rulers adds another source of pressure. His question — “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?” — was provocative, but not detached from Iran’s internal reality.

The country has experienced repeated nationwide protests driven by corruption, repression, inflation and declining living standards. The participation of bazaar merchants is especially significant. Merchants helped sustain the 1979 revolution, and their growing estrangement from the clerical government suggests that discontent extends beyond students and familiar opposition groups.

An uprising is possible, although it should not be treated as inevitable. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Basij militia remain capable of killing demonstrators, arresting organizers and disrupting communications. The opposition lacks unified leadership. Many Iranians who despise the regime also resent foreign attacks on their country.

Economic hardship alone rarely topples a government. The decisive development would be a fracture within the state: soldiers refusing to fire, police abandoning stations, government workers joining a national strike or commanders deciding that Mojtaba Khamenei cannot protect them.

Trump can encourage that process without attempting to manufacture an Iranian government from Washington. The United States can preserve internet access, document atrocities and offer credible protection to defectors. Amnesty for lower-ranking soldiers who refuse orders to attack civilians may be more useful than threats directed at every person wearing a uniform.

Tehran still possesses missiles, drones and the ability to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz. It may lash out again, hoping higher gasoline prices and American impatience will rescue it before economic pressure becomes unbearable. Another attack on commercial shipping would probably produce additional American strikes, destroying more of the military equipment Iran cannot easily replace.

But the balance increasingly favors Washington. American escorts are moving ships through Hormuz. Iran’s oil income is collapsing. Its foreign financial routes are narrowing, while its supposed allies are keeping a careful distance.

The coming weeks may not produce a dramatic surrender or sudden revolution. They could produce something quieter but equally consequential: missed government payments, additional labor unrest, widening divisions between Iranian hardliners and officials seeking negotiations, and private doubts among security commanders about the regime’s future.

Trump’s strategy is not yet a proven success. Iran has not stopped attacking ships, accepted reliable nuclear inspections or agreed to a durable peace. Nevertheless, the administration finally appears to be applying pressure Iran cannot easily redirect toward the battlefield.

The Islamic Republic has survived sanctions before by selling oil to China and moving money through foreign intermediaries. It has survived protests by keeping its security forces loyal and well supplied. If Bessent can close the first escape route, the second may become much harder to sustain.

Iran’s leaders can still negotiate while they retain some leverage. If they refuse, their next crisis may come not from an American bomber, but from unpaid soldiers, shuttered businesses and a population that no longer believes its rulers — or their distant friends in Moscow and Beijing — can provide a way out. 

Time is running out.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)