Bessent Unveils 'Single Greatest Financial Offensive Ever' Against Iran

The threatened economic operation Iran’s security chief warned Gulf states about over the weekend became real policy today. Treasury Secretary Bessent announced the package, saying Washington aims to ‘sever every economic lifeline that sustains Iran’ and calling on US allies to join; the Treasury Department is expanding secondary-sanctions exposure for anyone continuing business with Tehran. Iran countered with its own coercive tool: vessels violating its Hormuz transit rules could now face fines, seizure or confiscation, and Iran’s parliament advanced a draft law requiring ships to pay Tehran directly for transit. Both moves land against a backdrop of near-total traffic collapse — MarineTraffic recorded only six vessels transiting the strait in the 24 hours before the announcement, against a pre-war baseline of roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day through the waterway. On Gaza, a Board of Peace official confirmed Ugandan and Burundian delegations visited Israel to discuss deploying troops as part of the ceasefire’s planned international security force — concrete movement on a concept discussed since February — even as a 17-year-old Palestinian was killed in West Bank settler violence and an Israeli strike on a displaced-persons tent killed two brothers in Gaza. On Ukraine, the General Staff’s Aug 24 report puts cumulative Russian losses at 1,478,070 (+1,490), the highest single-day figure in over two weeks, while Ukrainian forces made local counterattack gains near Kozacha Lopan and central Kostiantynivka.