https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20151/iran-oil-exports
As Imperial Japan of 1940 pursued a strategy of aggression and murderous destruction in China, the United States sought to confront Tokyo with a strategy of economic restrictions, trade embargoes, and the threat of frozen financial assets.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) said at the time it was not his intent to bring Japan to its knees but to its senses.
There are lessons from policies and strategies forged nearly 85 years ago that need to be learned and applied as it becomes evident to those even in deliberate denial that Iran remains the malevolent force in the Middle East, masterminding the recent carnage inflicted by Hamas on Israel.
Under FDR, the Commerce Department created a task force of specialists that identified key commodities they believed were vital to Japan functioning as a society and important to their military. From rubber and petroleum to chromium and silk, Japan’s imports and exports were analyzed within the context of their war-making capabilities. The U.S. Treasury would also deploy their analysts to track Japan’s cash reserves, including their tens of millions of dollars that, even then, was a crucial global currency for international trade.
Today, the United States is facing an Iran that has used diplomatic guile, terrorist surrogates, and hidden cryptocurrency transfers to handle everything from paying for imports to funding those who will do their bidding in Gaza and Syria. They are a sophisticated and ruthless enemy. Yet they are strategically vulnerable if America and her allies are prepared to use that most potent of weapons: economic sanctions.