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The U.S. war effort against Iran was “accelerating” as American and Israeli forces fought for control of Iranian airspace and pressed farther inland to seek and destroy Iranian missile capabilities, top U.S. officials said Wednesday.

“Four days in, we have only just begun to fight,” said U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

“The throttle is coming up,” said Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

However, a reported Iranian missile strike at NATO member Turkey — intercepted by NATO defense systems — was not expected to immediately broaden the war theater by triggering a NATO clause requiring other member nations to get involved, Hegseth said.

Hegseth, striking an unapologetic tone, said Iran’s surviving leadership “don’t know what plays to call” after exhausting initial retaliatory strategies devised prior to the U.S. assault, while the U.S. is firing on all fronts and stacking up wins — including an American submarine recently sinking an Iranian warship with a torpedo in international waters, which Hegseth called the first such sinking since World War II.

“We are just getting started. We are accelerating, not decelerating,” he said. “We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to.”

Caine, striking a far more measured tone at the Pentagon briefing, spoke of the “sacrifice” of the six U.S. service members who have been killed in the conflict to date and the “clear military objectives” of the operation, which include dismantling “Iran’s ability to project power outside of its borders, both today and into the future.”

And he said the U.S. has made “steady progress” toward those goals in recent hours. He said Iran’s “ballistic missile shots” were down 86% from the first day of fighting, and down 23% “just in the last 24 hours.” He said their “one-way attack drone shots” are down 73% from the “opening days” of the war.

That has allowed the U.S. to establish “localized air superiority across the southern flank of the Iranian coast and penetrate their defenses with overwhelming precision and firepower,” Caine said. “We will now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory and creating additional freedom of maneuver for U.S. forces.”

Hegseth and Caine spoke against a backdrop of escalating destruction across the Persian Gulf region, as Iran — which Hegseth acknowledged is a “formidable” enemy — continued to unleash a wave of retaliatory strikes and Israel pushed into Lebanon and against Iran-allied Hezbollah fighters there.

Their message of U.S. control in the region belied chaos in many parts of it — as sirens blared in Bahrain, U.S. and other foreign citizens scrambled to flee the area, global air traffic was in disarray and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for the flow of global energy, was down by about 90%, according to the Associated Press.

Turkey’s defense ministry announced Wednesday that NATO air defenses had shot down a ballistic missile fired toward Turkish airspace from Iran, which raised additional questions about a rapidly expanding footprint of the war given that Turkey is a NATO member and protected by a treaty clause — Article 5 — stating that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Hegseth said the U.S. was aware of the strike, but that he did not believe it would trigger Article 5 or force all of NATO into the conflict — which has already drawn in nations throughout the Gulf region as Iran has targeted U.S. allies and military facilities.

Hegseth jettisoned any pretense of constraint or measured force by the U.S., instead casting its operations as an all-out assault on “radical Islamist Iranian adversaries” that he suggested both Democrats and the U.S. media were badly misrepresenting to make President Trump look bad.

He suggested the U.S. media was overly focused on losses, such as the deaths of U.S. military personnel, and not nearly focused enough on the progress the U.S. has made toward destroying Iran’s military capabilities in a matter of days.

“They are toast, and they know it — or at least soon enough they will know it,” he said of Iran. “And we’ve only just begun to hunt, dismantle, demoralize, destroy and defeat their capabilities, just four days in.”

He said that the U.S. and Israel in “under a week” will “have complete control of Iranian skies — uncontested air space,” which he said will mean that “we will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military, finding and fixing their leaders and their military leaders.”

“Death and destruction from the sky, all day long,” he said. “We’re playing for keeps.”

It was unclear what exactly Hegseth meant by that, given the Trump administration’s constant messaging that the war on Iran will not be another “endless” engagement for the U.S. in the Middle East.

The U.S. was using rules of engagement that are “bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it,” Hegseth said. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Disruptions to tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and their potential effect on global and U.S. gas prices, were clearly on Trump’s mind. On Tuesday, he posted to his Truth Social platform that the U.S. would be providing wartime insurance for “ALL Maritime Trade” through Gulf shipping lanes — as other insurers began canceling coverage — and that the U.S. Navy would begin escorting tankers if necessary.

“No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD,” he wrote.

The message drew immediate concern from some of Trump’s political opponents, who questioned the cost to the U.S. of securing energy shipments for the entire world, including rivals such as China, one of the largest purchasers of crude oil from the region.

“Very few, if any, of these tankers are coming to the United States,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) wrote on X. “This certainly looks like the United States will be subsidizing and protecting oil shipments to China.”

The White House is set to impose a 15 percent tariff through Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 after the US Supreme Court ruled against Donald Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.

United States President Donald Trump has ramped up tariff threats following last week’s US Supreme Court decision that ruled that Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, were unlawful.

On Monday, Trump said that any countries that wanted to “play games” after the high court’s ruling would be hit “with a much higher tariff ” in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

In a separate post on the platform, Trump claimed that he does not need the approval of the US Congress for tariffs.

“As President, I do not have to go back to Congress to get approval of Tariffs . It has already been gotten, in many forms, a long time ago! They were also just reaffirmed by the ridiculous and poorly crafted supreme court decision!” Trump said in the post.

Trump does have some authority to impose other tariffs, but they are much more limited.

Following the court’s 6–3 decision on Friday, the president said he would introduce a 10 percent tariff, raising it to 15 percent by Saturday under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, the maximum limit under the statute that enables the White House to impose tariffs for 150 days.

The statute only requires a presidential declaration and does not require further investigation. Section 122 is only temporary; the tariffs would then expire unless Congress extends them.

Trump’s tariffs are overwhelmingly unpopular. A new Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that 64 percent of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of tariffs.

Looming uncertainty

Experts warn that Trump’s newly imposed tariffs will fuel further economic uncertainty.

“What we do know is that it would continue to require all those parties affected to continue to live in uncertainty and, as many have already pointed out, such uncertainty is not good for our economy and has negative impacts on American consumers,” Max Kulyk, partner and CEO of Chicory Wealth, a private wealth advisory firm, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s impossible to plan. You hear that tariffs are off, and you are considering how to get refunds. Then a few hours later, it’s 10 percent. Then it’s 15 percent the next day…. Not having that stable framework is hurtful for activity, hiring, investment,” Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, told the Reuters news agency.

Gold, which is considered a safe investment in times of economic uncertainty, surged by 2 percent on Monday, hitting a three-week high as tariff pressures remain unclear.

US markets are also taking a hit. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is down 1.1 percent in midday trading. The S&P 500 is also down by 1 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped by 1.5 percent since the market opened on Monday.

Stalling trade deals

Trump’s erratic approach has also deterred movement on looming trade deals.

On Monday, the European Parliament opted to postpone voting on a trade deal with the US. It is the second time the bloc has pushed back the vote. The first was in protest against Trump’s unsolicited attempts to acquire Greenland.

The assembly had been considering removing several European Union import duties on US goods. Committee chair Bernd Lange said the new temporary US tariff could mean increased levies for some EU exports, and no one knew what would happen after they expire in 150 days. EU lawmakers will reconvene on March 4 to assess if the US has clarified the situation and confirmed its commitment to last year’s deal.

United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has claimed that Washington engineered a dollar shortage in Iran to send the rial into freefall and cause protests on the streets.

In December and January, Iran was faced with one of the biggest antigovernment protests the country has seen since the Islamic revolution of 1979, prompted by the severe economic crisis.

Protests over soaring prices in Iran began with shopkeepers in Tehran who shuttered their shops and began demonstrating on December 28, 2025, after the rial plunged to a record low against the US dollar in late December. The protests then spread to other provinces of Iran.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s government responded with force. More than 6,800 protesters, including at least 150 children, are thought to have been killed in a sweeping crackdown by the government on the protest movement.

So, how did Washington create a “dollar shortage” in Iran, ultimately causing the rial to tank? And what effect has that had on the Iranian people?

What is a ‘dollar shortage’?

A “dollar shortage” refers to when a country does not have enough US dollars to pay for things it needs from the rest of the world.

The US dollar is the main currency used in global trade, especially for oil, machinery and loan repayments, which means countries need a steady supply of it.

If exports fall and sanctions block access to the US financial system, dollars can become scarce. As a result, the local currency weakens, prices of imported goods rise, and inflation worsens.

In Iran, a “dollar shortage” was engineered by simultaneously blocking the two main channels of foreign exchange (FX) inflow: Oil exports and international banking access, said Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, an economist at Germany’s Marburg University. The US did this by imposing sanctions on Iranian oil, meaning anyone buying or selling it would be subject to punitive measures.

Given Iran’s dependence on oil for revenue, economic sanctions on its oil can create a severe FX constraint.

“By using secondary sanctions to threaten any global entity trading in dollars with Iran, the US traps Iran’s existing reserves abroad and prevents new dollars from entering the domestic market,” Farzanegan told Al Jazeera.

What has US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said?

Replying to a query about dealing with Iran at a Congressional hearing last week, Treasury Secretary Bessent described the US strategy to send the Iranian currency plunging.

“What we [have done] at Treasury is created a dollar shortage in the country,” Bessent said, adding that the strategy came to a “grand culmination in December, when one of the largest banks in Iran went under … the Iranian currency went into freefall, inflation exploded, and hence, we have seen the Iranian people out on the street.

“We have seen the Iranian leadership wiring money out of the country like crazy,” Bessent added. “So the rats are leaving the ship, and that is a good sign that they know the end may be near.”

Before this, speaking with Fox News at the World Economic Forum last month in Davos, Bessent explained the role US sanctions played in driving the recent nationwide protests.

“President Trump ordered Treasury … to put maximum pressure on Iran, and it’s worked,” he said. “Because in December, their economy collapsed. They are not able to get imports, and this is why the people took to the streets.”

In both instances, Bessent referred to his earlier remarks at the Economic Club of New York, in March last year, when he outlined how the White House would leverage President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign to collapse Iran’s economy.

In his address there, Bessent said the US “elevated a sanctions campaign against [Iran’s] export infrastructure, targeting all stages of Iran’s oil supply chain”, coupled with “vigorous government engagement and private sector outreach” to “close off Iran’s access to the international financial system”.

What effect did the dollar shortage have in Iran?

In January, the Iranian rial was trading at 1.5 million to the dollar – a sharp decline from about 700,000 a year earlier in January 2025 and about 900,000 in mid-2025. The plummeting currency triggered steep inflation, with food prices an average of 72 percent higher than last year.

In 2018, during his first presidency, Trump withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal between Iran and global powers limiting Tehran’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.

Since re-election last January, President Trump has doubled down on his so-called “maximum pressure” to cripple Iran’s economy and corner Tehran to renegotiate its nuclear and regional policies. Last month, Trump threatened a 25 percent tariff on countries doing business with Iran.

Through the rigorous blocking of Iran from the global financial system by creating a dollar shortage, the US pushed Tehran towards a severe “import compression, [and as a result, Iran] cannot pay for the intermediate goods and machinery required for domestic production”, said Farzanegan, the economist.

The US strategy, he said, “is particularly devastating because it leverages commercial risk management against humanitarian needs”. In short, Washington’s strategy “makes the small Iranian market a commercial liability” for any company, even if they are only dealing with medicine, for instance, Farzanegan added.

A research paper published by Farzanegan and Iranian American economist Nader Habibi last year found that the size of Iran’s middle class would have expanded by an annual average of approximately 17 percentage points, between 2012 and 2019, if it were not for US action.

In 2019, the estimated size of loss in the middle-class share of the population in Iran was 28 percentage points, the research found.

“People lost their purchasing power, and savings were wiped out,” the economist told Al Jazeera. “This is a long-term destruction of the country’s human capital.”

Besides the US action is the existing vulnerability of Iran’s economic structure, with factors like long-term mismanagement, high rates of corruption and over-reliance on oil revenues making it fragile.

While the US sanctions created external shock, a lack of domestic structural reforms left the government with “no fiscal space to cushion the blow”.

What is the US’s endgame here – and will it succeed?

Bessent’s admission that Washington deliberately created a “dollar shortage” signals the US’s shift towards a total economic warfare narrative.

“This is economic statecraft; no shots fired,” Bessent said at the WEF in Davos last month.

“This admission may complicate the US’s diplomatic standing, as it confirms that the humanitarian channels for food and medicine are often rendered useless if the entire banking system is being targeted for collapse,” Farzanegan said.

Bruce Fein, a former US associate deputy attorney general who specialises in constitutional and international law, told Al Jazeera that this type of economic coercion is “as common as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west”, pointing to economic sanctions against Russia, Cuba, North Korea, China and Myanmar.

However, unlike in other cases where the US has applied economic pressure, Farzanegan said Iran’s case is “a unique experiment due to the duration and intensity of the pressure”.

Unlike Russia, which has a more diversified export base and larger reserves, Iran has been facing varied forms of sanctions for decades since the supreme leader took power in 1979.

“Iran has a sophisticated internal mechanism for sanctions circumvention that makes the ‘dollar shortage’ a game of cat-and-mouse rather than a one-time shock,” the economist said.

With a US armada currently stationed in the Arabian Sea, the US and Iran are in talks to defuse tensions. The US wants three key things from Iran: To stop enriching uranium as part of its nuclear programme, to get rid of its ballistic missiles and to stop arming non-state actors in the region.

Ultimately, observers say, the US wants regime change in Iran.

But Fein said his experience shows that economic sanctions alone “seldom, if ever, topple regimes … Regime change comes externally only with the use of military force.

“Iran’s dollar shortage will not oust the mullahs or Revolutionary Guard,” he said, referring to Iran’s current administrative structure.

The impoverishment of Iranians will diminish, Fein told Al Jazeera, “rather than promote the likelihood of a successful revolution because day-to-day survival will be the priority”.