Washington is trying to isolate Iran.
But the more aggressively it pressures Iran’s neighbors, the more those neighbors have an incentive to develop alternative economic corridors, payment systems and trade partnerships.
This is the deeper problem with economic warfare:
Sanctions can punish individual actors. They cannot repeal geography.
Iran’s neighbors need its energy, markets, transit routes and connectivity.
And they have little incentive to sacrifice their own economic security simply to enforce Washington’s containment strategy.
The Verdict
Iran has not been isolated.
Instead, the sanctions campaign is accelerating the search for alternatives to the very financial and economic architecture through which Washington exercises its power.
Washington wanted to build a wall around Iran.
But Eurasia is building roads around Washington’s wall.