Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the Trump administration plans to impose sanctions on another bank this week in effort to clamp down on Iran transactions
Page A18From§Eachthe late evening edition — 30 August 2026
U.S. strikes Iran again, first time in weeks, then adds one more bank to its sanctions list.
As it ran on the front
A ROUTINE, ISOLATED, ONGOING SITUATION
I want to walk you through the sequence, because laid end to end it sounds worse than it is, and I've been asked to make sure it doesn't sound like that. The United States struck two Iranian rocket launch sites. That was a defensive, proportionate action. Iran then targeted American installations in Jordan, which itself followed strikes on Larak Island — I'm told the ordering matters here, though I couldn't tell you anymore which strike is the response to which, and at a certain point that's not a bug in my talking points, that's the actual state of the campaign.…
…(cont) This was described, accurately, as the first attack since late July, and separately, days apart, as the first time in weeks — both technically correct, which should tell you something about how we're counting. We resumed operations after observing preparations to mine the Strait of Hormuz, a real strategic chokepoint and a real concern, not, I want to be clear, a talking point invented for this column, though it is doing a great deal of work in this column.
Separately — and I keep using that word, I notice, maybe that's worth sitting with — Treasury is adding one additional bank to the sanctions list. This is part of the broader maximum-pressure architecture. It is not, I want to stress, an acknowledgment that the strikes alone aren't accomplishing the stated objective, that would be a different kind of admission entirely, that would be admitting we're running two tracks because one of them isn't — no. They're complementary. They were always complementary. I may have implied otherwise a moment ago. Strike that.
The bottom line, and I will end here, is that every one of these actions was necessary, isolated, and proportionate, and the fact that there have now been enough of them to require phrases like "first since" and "first time in weeks" to keep them straight is simply a function of a complicated regional picture, not an indication that this is, in the plain sense of the word, ongoing.
It's ongoing. I said isolated. Strike that too.
“Every few weeks it's 'first strike since,' like they're keeping a scorecard, and every few weeks there's one more bank on the sanctions list like that's the part anybody asked for. Nobody voted for a rolling war measured out in press releases.”
“These are precision, defensive actions in response to imminent threats to American personnel, full stop — and the bank sanctions are separate, unrelated to the — actually they're both part of the same maximum-pressure posture, I don't see the — yes, they're connected. That's fine. That's the policy.”
The receipts
“U.S. forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island”
A U.S. official tells NBC News that U.S. forces struck two Iranian launchers that were preparing to put sea mines into the Strait of Hormuz today, marking the first attacks of the Iran war in weeks. NBC News’ Yamiche Alcindor reports.
The Strait of Hormuz remains the primary flashpoint in the conflict.
Iran fired ballistic missiles at U.S. military bases in Jordan on Sunday after U.S. Central Command struck two rocket launchers on Larak Island earlier in the day over concerns Tehran was deploying sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz…
The U.S. military struck two Iranian rocket launchers on Sunday, marking its first attack on the Middle Eastern country in more than a month, with Iran reportedly retaliating later in the day. American forces struck the two launchers on…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.