Screenshot taken from this NYT article. | A man holding an Iranian flag in an apartment destroyed by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes in Tehran earlier this year. Credit: Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times
THE NEW YORK TIMES:
Trump’s replacement of a military war with a heightened economic one is not expected to alter Iran’s strategy, while further impoverishing its people.
It was supposed to be quick.
Still, six months after the U.S. and Israel launched massive airstrikes on Iran, the conflict drags on. The Trump administration has replaced its military war with an economic one, but the result is likely to be no different, analysts said, with a lack of American clarity about goals, a decline in American credibility and a strategic defeat.
One thing remains constant, however. The
ordinary people of Iran are bearing the brunt of the war, victims of both the United States and their own leaders.
On the first day of the war, Feb. 28, President Trump promised Iranians that “the hour of your freedom is at hand.” Six months later, his administration is trying to impoverish them further, hoping against hope that they will revolt against a repressive, militarized regime and overthrow it.
The Iranian leadership, increasingly dominated by military men, sees its own survival as the nation’s, and it considers the sacrifices of ordinary Iranians as a necessary act of patriotism and even martyrdom. It has been ever more ruthless in stamping out the slightest signs of dissent.
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Steven Erlanger | Steven Erlanger, based in Berlin, has covered Iran and the diplomacy around it for many years. | Friday, August 28, 2026
