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China Is Calling Trump’s Bluff on Iran & Operation Economic Outcast | w/ Navid Zarrinnal
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August 26, 2026
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19:41Now PlayingThe US already tried its harshest sanctions on Iran once and they failed. So Trump went to war. Tehran-based journalist Navid Zarrinnal joins Rania Khalek and Zoe Alexandra to explain why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's Operation Economic Outcast — Trump's promised "economic D-Day" — is doomed from the start; as top military analysts conclude the US has likely permanently lost 15 Gulf bases and crude oil reserves have hit their thinnest cushion in five decades, the Pentagon is pulling its precision-guided munitions out of East Asia to keep Iran surrounded, all while the Strait of Hormuz remains firmly in Tehran's control.
Zarrinnal breaks down the wildcard that could make this backfire even harder: if the UAE cuts ties with Iran, Tehran may pivot deeper into Asia, accelerating the precise multipolar shift Washington fears. The whole strategy runs through China, Iran's biggest oil buyer by far, which has already told its companies to defy the sanctions outright, with one court penalizing a Singaporean firm for refusing to do business with Iran under US pressure.
It all points to one thing, Zarrinnal argues: the declining power of US empire. And Iran is already laying the groundwork to build what comes next, including reported new talks with Burkina Faso, a country waging its own fight against French imperialism.
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