Pezeshkian: America Can’t Break Iran
Iran’s president says Washington failed militarily and is now trying to choke trade, divide society and exploit internal weaknesses. How resilient is Tehran?
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says the United States failed to force Iran into submission through military power and is now trying to achieve the same objective by blocking air, land and sea routes, intensifying media pressure and exploiting internal divisions.
“They want to make maximum use of whatever weaknesses we may have,” he said, promising that Iran would make the campaign fail.
The statement is both a warning and a political strategy. By describing economic hardship as part of an external war, Pezeshkian seeks national unity and shifts responsibility toward Washington. The United States openly confirms important parts of that pressure campaign.
Treasury’s Operation Economic Outcast targets Iranian oil, finance, digital assets and aviation. All active Iranian airlines have been sanctioned, and foreign firms face the risk of losing access to the U.S. financial system if they provide services. Maritime operations and port restrictions have further constrained trade.
Washington argues that these measures deny revenue to the IRGC, weapons programs and allied armed groups. Tehran describes them as collective punishment because ordinary citizens experience inflation, shortages, transport disruption and lost employment long before political elites surrender.
Pezeshkian’s claim that military pressure failed is harder to measure. U.S. and Israeli strikes damaged Iranian infrastructure and killed senior figures, but they did not produce capitulation. Iran retained the ability to retaliate and disrupt shipping. Survival, however, is not the same as strategic victory.
The internal-vulnerability argument deserves equal scrutiny. Iran contains economic inequality, political factionalism, ethnic grievances and frustration with state restrictions. Foreign governments have historically tried to exploit such divisions. Yet Tehran also uses accusations of foreign manipulation to discredit peaceful dissent and justify repression.
External pressure is only part of Iran’s economic problem. Corruption, opaque state enterprises, currency mismanagement and restrictions on private business reduce resilience. A government that blames every failure on sanctions may avoid reforms that could make sanctions less effective.
Maximum-pressure campaigns face a recurring dilemma. They can weaken a state’s resources without changing its leadership’s decisions. They may also strengthen hardliners who argue that compromise only invites more demands. Supporters answer that relief without concessions would reward military escalation.
Pressure can expose contradictions on both sides
Washington says it is targeting the Iranian state while protecting civilians. Aviation and banking sanctions complicate that distinction because commercial connectivity, medical procurement and remittances rely on the same infrastructure. Case-by-case humanitarian exemptions may exist on paper but become ineffective when foreign companies fear any Iranian transaction.
Tehran makes the opposite simplification. It portrays economic resistance as national resistance, even though politically connected institutions often retain privileged access to currency and trade routes. Ordinary businesses and households bear a disproportionate share of inflation and scarcity.
The ethnic dimension is particularly sensitive. Iran includes Kurdish, Arab, Baluch, Azeri and other communities with distinct grievances. Foreign outreach to civil society does not automatically equal a separatist operation; covert funding for armed groups would be a different matter. Pezeshkian offered no evidence allowing the public to distinguish them.
Information warfare works through this ambiguity. U.S. outlets emphasize state weakness and protest, while Iranian media emphasize national resilience and foreign conspiracy. Each selects facts that support its preferred outcome.
The government’s strongest defense against external manipulation would be political inclusion, credible elections, equal development and lawful treatment of dissent. Repression may suppress immediate instability while deepening the grievances an adversary could later exploit. Resilience is therefore not only the capacity to withstand sanctions. It is the ability to correct internal weaknesses without treating every critic as an enemy agent.
The New York diplomatic opening will test both narratives. If Tehran is authorized to negotiate, limited sanctions relief could be exchanged for shipping access or inspections. If talks fail, each side will portray the result as proof that the other understands only force.
What to watch next
Can Iran keep oil exports, aviation links and basic imports functioning? Do shortages create negotiation pressure or deeper nationalism? And will Pezeshkian pair resistance rhetoric with domestic reform? The contest is no longer simply about who can inflict more damage. It is about which government can maintain public consent while the economic costs accumulate.