Trump’s Economic D-Day can hammer Iran, but will Tehran ever surrender?

I lived in Europe for years, studying World War II not only in books but on the ground, walking battlefields and cemeteries and listening to veterans who had fought their way across the continent.

For America and our European allies, D-Day was an all-in fight.

Survival was at stake.

There was no ambiguity about the enemy or the objective.

So, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called his new maximum-pressure campaign against Iran an "Economic D-Day," a term he used this week , one question immediately came to mind: Where is V-E Day? The real D-Day came on June 6, 1944.

Nazi Germany did not surrender until May 8, 1945.

That was eleven months later.

D-Day was not victory.

It began the final campaign toward victory.

Bessent deserves credit for launching something much more ambitious than another sanctions package.

The administration calls it Operation Economic Outcast : an effort to sever Iran’s remaining economic lifelines in shipping, aviation, technology, gold and digital assets, with secondary sanctions threatened against foreign enablers.

About 60 individuals, entities and vessels were targeted in the opening round.

TRUMP THREATENS 'UNPRECEDENTED' ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES FOR ANY NATION AIDING IRAN And there is an important difference from President Donald Trump’s first-term "maximum pressure" campaign: the U.S.

Navy .