Could Iran’s regime collapse? Experts assess Bessent’s bid to sever financial lifelines

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s Monday announcement that America will impose the economic equivalent of the military campaign that defeated Nazi Germany on the Islamic Republic of Iran could set off a series of events leading to the dissolution of the nearly 47-year-old dictatorship in Tehran, according to Iran experts.

Bessent’s declaration of economic warfare follows President Donald Trump’s commitment last week to launch an "economic D-Day" against the Tehran regime. The comprehensive U.S. economic pressure point campaign targeting Iran’s already troubled economy could have dramatic effects on the restive population in the country of over 90 million people.

"In the Second World War, D-Day marked the historic beginning of a campaign with our allies to target and drive the enemy from its positions, including those in third countries. Today, in that same spirit, we are launching an economic onslaught against Iran's financial connections around the globe," said Bessent. He added that "Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone. Iran's fanatics devote themselves to death to America and seek nuclear weapons to do just that. They have murdered and maimed more of our citizens and service members than any other terrorist regime on Earth."

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Just hours before Bessent spoke, Iran’s currency, the rial, plunged to an all-time low. The rial fell to 2.02 million to the U.S. dollar. Iranians are struggling to afford basic goods.

Jonathan Harounoff, an Iran expert and British author of Persian heritage, told Fox News Digital that "Ultimately, this pressure campaign will likely continue to cripple the regime and set the stage for perhaps yet another domestic uprising. The precise timing of such a revolt is impossible to predict."

Harounoff, who has written extensively on upheavals in Iran against the clerical leadership, added, "What isn't impossible to predict is that the regime is governing brutishly over a repressed population that has endured sustained economic and social immiseration. It's only a matter of time before more protests break out, and the real question is whether international organizations like the U.N. and Western governments will choose to stand by — or tangibly support the Iranian people and actively sever any cooperation they maintain with the regime."

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He warned that, "Too often, outsiders speak of regime change as if it were a passive exercise. Certainly, only the people of Iran can bring about organic, homegrown, transformational change — and they have 47 years of turmoil and repression driving them toward it. But there are real ways to support the Iranian people (Starlink, supporting think tanks and foundations, raising awareness of the plight of Iranians, etc.) and help them achieve what has, until now, been a quixotic dream."

Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), told Fox News Digital that "The question is often asked what makes this iteration of the maximum pressure campaign different from all other iterations? The answer is this iteration is taking place against a backdrop where there is a synchronization of economic and military pressure against the Iranian regime — a combination which has never been deployed by a U.S. administration until now. The U.S. naval blockade currently in place against Tehran is unprecedented. The Iranian regime's industrial base — for example, steel plants — has also been damaged following kinetic strikes. The Iranian regime’s military capacity has likewise been degraded."

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He noted that "So Operation Economic Outcast is being launched at a time of true weakness in terms of its national power. The regime's risk tolerance may be increasing, but so is its desperation. The drivers pushing the Iranian people into the streets to protest have only gotten worse since January — with political, economic and social forces all deteriorating. The regime is seeking to use the tussle over the Strait of Hormuz as a distraction from all of this."

Alireza Nader, an independent Iran expert, however, expressed skepticism that the tightening of the economic screws could provoke a mass revolt. "I don’t think starving the civilian population in Iran will lead to an American victory. The regime has demonstrated an extreme brutality toward the population, having massacred thousands of unarmed protestors this past January. And Iranians are less likely to rise up when the promised help to them from Trump and Netanyahu never materialized."

Nader said that" The Woman, Life, Freedom movement against the regime prior to the war had the best chance of overthrowing the regime. This war has disrupted the Iranian people’s struggle for freedom."

Beni Sabti, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Israel, told Fox News Digital "that "there are some protests inside Iran for pensioners and those who did not get their salaries."

He said the January protests began with "economic problems." President Trump has said that the Iranian regime murdered 52,000 Iranian demonstrators during the Jan 8 and 9 mass protests against the regime.

Sabti, who was born in Tehran and has deep sourcing in Iran, said Trump’s economic offensive campaign against Iran could "bring out the people again." He said there were some "rumors" that lower-rank army soldiers did not receive their salaries.

The U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent seized on the point that the regime will have payroll problems today. He said, "To the ordinary soldiers supporting this regime, as more and more of your paychecks stop or are supposedly just delayed, ask whether your commanders are leading your country to triumph or to ruin, and recall that the Berlin Wall fell when ordinary soldiers decided not to shoot at their own people."