Iranian leadership doesn’t take Donald Trump’s threats ‘literally’ and is ‘largely dismissive of them,’ expert says as war drags on for sixth month

President Donald Trump has escalated his rhetoric against Iran as the U.S. military offensive approaches its six-month mark, but an expert says the president’s intimidation tactics simply do not seem to hold much weight today in Tehran, where calls for escalation rather than compromise are gaining traction. Trump recently warned of an unprecedented economic offensive, while Iran has shown little willingness to capitulate, instead preparing for a prolonged confrontation.

Donald Trump’s escalating rhetoric regarding Iran

Trump has repeatedly used extreme warnings against Iran since the war began on February 28. He previously warned of “the biggest attack since World War II” and in April said that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” However, those threats were ultimately followed by diplomatic efforts rather than the threatened escalation.

Trump’s latest warning came Wednesday, August 19, as the conflict entered a new phase after months of military confrontation and stalled diplomacy. He declared an “ECONOMIC D-DAY” against Iran on Truth Social and warned that the United States would pursue what he called “the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY!” 

Notably, the threat was broader than sanctions aimed directly at Tehran. Trump warned that any country allowing its financial institutions, businesses, airports or government entities to provide “any type of lifeline to Iran” would face “TREMENDOUS economic consequences.” He called on U.S. allies to help isolate and defeat Iran, effectively threatening to extend the economic campaign to countries and companies that continue trading with Tehran. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent subsequently said the Trump administration would impose “the toughest sanctions in history” against Iran, while suggesting that intensified economic pressure could reduce the need for additional major military operations. However, Trump has yet to specify exactly what additional measures would accompany the existing sanctions regime.

Iran increasingly dismisses Donald Trump’s warnings

“By now, the Iranian leadership does not take [Trump’s] threats literally and is largely dismissive of them,” Mehran Kamrava, a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and expert on Iranian politics, told Newsweek. “The danger, however, is that many in Iran, especially within leadership circles, see the current situation of ‘neither peace, nor war’ as untenable in the long run and see military escalation as the only way out of the current stalemate.”

“The more that President Trump pulls away from negotiations and promises the death of the Islamic Republic by a thousand sanctions, the stronger voices inside the Iranian leadership calling for military escalation become,” Kamrava added.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi dismissed Trump’s latest “economic D-Day” threat as “a diversion from America’s own crisis: unprecedented debt and surging interest costs.”

IRGC spokesperson Brig. Gen. Hossein Mohebi meanwhile warned that “if another war begins, our weaponry will certainly be different from those of the past,” with greater range, power and precision.

However, the economic campaign Trump has threatened could still inflict substantial damage. The UAE’s decision to halt “all trade, commercial exchanges and financial transactions with Iran” after missile attacks it attributed to Tehran has demonstrated that Iran’s economic position is under growing pressure.

‘Tehran believes it has won the war’

Mohsen Milani, executive director of the University of South Florida’s Center for Strategic & Diplomatic Studies, said, “Rightly or wrongly, Tehran believes it has won the war and can use its control of [the Strait of] Hormuz to extract concessions from Washington. … Additional strikes could devastate Iran but are unlikely to force its surrender or produce major concessions. Tehran can still retaliate against U.S. forces and allies, widen the battlefield and continue weaponizing Hormuz.”

The result, he argued, is that Washington “remains caught between escalating pressure and preserving diplomacy because military power alone is unlikely to end the conflict.” Meanwhile, “from Tehran’s perspective, American unpredictability has become unreliability,” Milani said. “Unpredictability creates leverage; unreliability destroys credibility,” he added. “A growing consensus in Tehran expects another war and judges Washington by its actions, not its assurances or words.”

Iran believes it can outlast the pressure

Milani said both the U.S. and Iran “believe they can outlast the other economically.”

“Trump’s new ‘no negotiations’ posture seeks to suffocate Iran until Tehran concludes that time is no longer on its side. Yet years of U.S. sanctions have devastated Iran’s economy without producing commensurate strategic gains for Washington,” he added.

The U.S. faces pressure of its own from depleted military resources, higher energy prices and declining domestic support for the war ahead of the midterm elections.

Jon Alterman, a former U.S. State Department official and current chair in global security and geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Iran appears to believe the current situation is more sustainable for Tehran than for Washington or its regional partners. “[Iran has] been on a war footing for almost 50 years, and the government faces no election,” Alterman told Newsweek. “If anything, their resilience in the face of attack from both the world’s strongest power and the region’s strongest power has given them credibility with their population. … In addition, the unprecedented killing of their entire leadership cadre must have persuaded them that this is the inflection point in their modern history, and they need to hang tough.”

“They see regional states suffocating from the economic dislocation, and the White House nervous about the impending election with high energy prices and a depleted U.S. military,” he added. “They see the president’s threats not as a sign of resolve, but as a sign of anxiety.”