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U.S.-Iran escalation reflects Washington's growing frustration with a sanctions approach that has stalled

9/13/2026

The latest hostilities between the United States and Iran signal something beyond another entry in a long ledger of confrontations: Washington has run short of patience with a sanctions strategy it considers too slow.

Sanctions, the policy tool where one government restricts another country's access to trade and financial markets to pressure a shift in behavior, are not a fast mechanism.

The renewed escalation makes plain that they have not been fast enough, by Washington's measure, in this standoff with Tehran. Here is what slow-moving actually means in this context.

A sanctions regime works, in theory, by raising the economic cost of a government's current policies until that cost exceeds the cost of changing course.

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