by Clarice Feldman
Iran is rapidly being consumed in the flames it lit.
The mullahcracy had the swell idea of avoiding accountability for attacks on Israel. They would surround Israel with well-armed proxies to do their dirty work. Hezb’allah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in the Red Sea, militias in Iraq and Syria, and allied forces in the West Bank. They would assert hegemony over the Middle East and choke off petro products to the world by blockading the Strait of Hormuz.
As it stands today, military action by the U.S. and Israel and economic warfare by the Treasury have nearly extinguished these fires. Iran is broke; they alone are being blockaded in the Strait with no means to earn oil revenue. Inflation is so great the rial is valueless (now over two million to the U.S. dollar). Most of its leadership is dead. Its navy has been sunk. Its radar and missile capacities are virtually nonexistent. It’s a defenseless sitting duck. Except for torturing and murdering its own citizens, it poses no real threat to anyone. It lacks allies it once assumed and is disintegrating rapidly. It is being consumed in the flames it lit.
Hezb’allah
A key component of the ring plan was Hezb’allah in Lebanon. This week, at Ali-Al-Taher, it fell to Israeli forces. Iran had called the security of this base a red line, which Israel crossed at its peril. There was no offensive move by Iran after the base fell.
A 20-year IRGC military project has fallen to Israel, exposing just how badly the Islamic Republic’s regional deterrence has eroded.
Ali al-Taher was not simply another Hezbollah position. It was a deeply buried Iranian-backed military complex, reportedly cut 30–50 meters into rock, with command rooms, weapons stores, generators, living quarters, kitchens and clinics. It served as a headquarters for Hezbollah’s Badr Unit, responsible for the sector north of the Litani.
Its location was strategic. The ridge overlooks Nabatieh, the Litani, approaches to Iqlim al-Tuffah and toward the Hula Valley, forming part of the military architecture intended to threaten northern Israel.
But Israel did not fight the battle the fortress was built for. It isolated it and waited. [snip]
- Roughly 30–40 Hezbollah fighters were reportedly trapped underground, while resupply drones were intercepted and access routes cut.
- Israeli drones were pushed into the shafts as the siege continued for months, denying Hezbollah the costly ground assault the complex was designed to force.
- By mid-August, the Islamic Republic reportedly warned that a full Israeli assault would trigger a large-scale Iranian response.
Israel crossed the red line anyway and established operational control over the ridge.
That is what makes this far bigger than Hezbollah losing another position.
AdvertisementThe Islamic Republic spent decades building its “ring of fire” so its enemies would have to fight heavily fortified proxy armies before the war ever reached Iran. Ali al-Taher was exactly the kind of position that doctrine was supposed to make nearly untouchable.
Instead, Israel developed a method for defeating it without paying the price the IRGC intended: surround it, sever its logistics, dominate the air above it and wait.
That method can be repeated against other underground Hezbollah positions.
And the political damage may be even greater. The Islamic Republic publicly attached its credibility to a red line and then watched that red line get crossed.
Hamas has been devastated. The Syrian land bridge has been shattered. Hezbollah has lost much of its old command structure. Now one of the most important surviving pieces of the Islamic Republic’s military architecture in Lebanon has fallen.
The “ring of fire” was built to protect the Islamic Republic. Increasingly, the Islamic Republic cannot even protect the ring.
At its peak, Iran pumped between 700 million and a billion dollars annually into the Hezb’allah project. Iran ‘s financial straits and the difficulty of transmitting funds may have made it impossible to meet Hezb’allah’s present survival needs.
The Islamic Republic did not finance Hezbollah merely as a militia. Iranian wealth paid for the parallel state around the militia: salaries, reconstruction, loans, social services and the patronage that helped Hezbollah maintain loyalty.
Now the Islamic Republic itself is being squeezed by collapsing oil revenue, a devastated rial, extreme inflation and increasingly aggressive financial restrictions.
[snip]
Now the patron is running short of money, the flagship proxy is rationing what remains, and the empire Iran was impoverished to build is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.
The PMF Militia in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen
Hezb’allah is not the only proxy in trouble. The Iraqi militia and the Houthis are being dismantled, sped up by the economic collapse of Iran. The regime is struggling, in fact, to make payments even to its domestic forces of repression.
In Gaza, anti-Hamas militias and the IDF are picking off Hamas leaders, and breaking out of the IDF cordon seems unlikely.
No Significant Allies in Sight
At the outset, some pundits believed there was a meaningful Russia-China-North Korea-Iran alliance which would come to Iran’s defense. Didn’t happen.
China has sold them out and is locking in deals with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the region. The Islamic Republic is becoming irrelevant by the day.
Russia is bailing out of Iran, like it did 17 days before the 40-day war between Iran and US-Israel. A Russian private jet just pulled the last remaining Russian technicians out of Bushehr and Asaluyeh. Dexter Air Taxi flight DXT9686 (RA-02786) headed back to Russia. The rats are leaving the sinking ship. Even Moscow won’t stay. The occupying Islamic regime in Tehran is being abandoned in real time.
Both countries valued their own interests in energy supplies, trade, and avoiding a fight with the U.S. as more important than partnering with Iran. The scary scenario by some commentators about a Russian and Chinese clash with the U.S. proved as baseless as Iran’s threat to choke the flow of oil to the world. (Millions of gallons of oil -- except for Iran’s -- now flow through the Strait.)
Bessent Cuts the Lifeline
No longer can Iran count on money flowing to it through hidden financial lifelines. The U.S. Treasury has located these conduits and is shutting them out of the U.S. financial system.
Bessent told the news service CNBC on Thursday that the US would apply the “toughest sanctions in history” on Iran, its adversary in a nearly six-month-long war.
“It is a one-two punch. We have the blockade [on Iran], and we are going to have the toughest sanctions in history,” Bessent said. “It is going to work in Iran, and we are going to collapse this regime.”
He then offered a warning to the members of the international community that they too could face economic penalties if they continue to trade with Iran.
“We’re going to them and saying: You’re either with us or against us,” Bessent said. “If you insist on doing business with them -- either transferring money, buying oil, doing seaborne ship transport -- then the US Treasury and the US government, they will put its full might and force towards enforcing against you.”
He billed the US’s strategy as the “greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world”.
“It is time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision,” Bessent added.
The biggest sanctions so far announced have been against the Turkiye-based Golden Global Yatirim Bankasi Anonim Sirkati, which had been established to enable the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars of Iranian oil revenues from China to Turkey. From there, it had been converted to cash and gold accessible to the IRGC and its proxies. Bessent told the news service CNBC on Thursday that the U.S. would apply the “toughest sanctions in history” on Iran, its adversary in a nearly six-month-long war.
The Turkish Bank is just the beginning.
OPERATION ECONOMIC OUTCAST IS ISOLATING THE IRANIAN REGIME
Announced by Secretary Bessent on August 24, 2026, dubbed Economic D-Day, Operation Economic Outcast is severing the remaining economic lifelines that sustain the Iranian regime. Treasury has mapped the networks, facilitators, and financial channels that Iran uses to smuggle oil, evade sanctions, and fund terror. Working with partners across the U.S. government, the European Union, United Kingdom, Gulf partners, and others, Treasury is targeting any source of the regime’s illicit revenue, as well as its sanctions evasion schemes to move funds.
Operation Economic Outcast significantly expanded sanctions risk for those who continue to choose to do business with Iran. Treasury warned that any entity facilitating money laundering or sanctions evasion on behalf of Iran risks being cut off from the U.S. financial system. It also expanded secondary sanctions exposure for those who continue doing business with the Iranian regime and will accelerate the pace of U.S. enforcement. More information on Operation Economic Outcast is available here.
Because Iran is already subject to comprehensive U.S. sanctions, in order to generate revenue and transfer funds abroad, it relies on multi-jurisdictional shadow banking networks that often provide key access to U.S. dollar correspondent banking relationships. Iran uses these shadow banking networks to launder funds, procure weapons, and bankroll its regional terrorist proxy groups. These networks rely on financial institutions such as Golden Global Bank, and Operation Economic Outcast will continue to identify these banks and remove their access to the U.S. dollar.
The Iranian regime is now at its weakest point, and we hope that the country’s beleaguered citizens are being covertly armed and aided in achieving regime change before the country is totally destroyed by these theocratic monsters.
Clarice Feldman
Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/09/iran-s-ring-of-fire-now-ashes/
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