Iran clearly sees sanctions as a real threat to them:
Addressing parliament speakers from Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey, Rouhani said they had all suffered economic pressure from the US.
"We are facing an all-out assault which is not only threatening our independence and identity but also is bent on breaking our longstanding ties," he said.
As I recently wrote, economic sanctions harmful enough can be considered the equivalent of actual warfare that justifies a kinetic warfare response:
As I've said, while economic sanctions are considered an alternative to war, if sanctions are really effective the target of the sanctions will see them as little different than kinetic attacks and may consider kinetics in response.
Is Iran approaching that point?
Just in case, I also had some advice for our side:
I'd keep our capital ships out of the Persian Gulf for now and carefully investigate the death of our 5th Fleet commander in Bahrain.
Seriously, Fifth Fleet needs to keep on its toes because we often dangle some appealing targets in front of Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.
You never can tell when Iranian words of intense worry will prompt military action against us on the theory that open warfare couldn't be any worse--and it might be the venue for Allah to demonstrate his power by enabling a miraculous Iranian victory--than the slow war of sanctions.
