Treasury unveiled 36 sanctions on Iranian airlines Tuesday under the name "economic D-Day," three days after the all-time record price landed at an American pump: diesel, $5.88.

…(cont) So I go out to the car. The car needs a fan belt, it's needed one since spring, and I'm putting the paper in the glovebox — the glovebox is where the gas receipts live, under a rubber band — and that's when the other thing occurred to me. The thing I actually wanted to ask you about. I had it written down. Hold on. Here it is.

Tuesday the eighth. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveils thirty-six sanctions — twenty-seven Iranian airlines, nine other entities and companies around the world — and the Washington Examiner reports the administration's name for the effort: "economic D-Day." Same Tuesday, the New York Post has Ambassador Mike Huckabee defending the strategy of bombing and bankrupting Iran, saying the actions are necessary to protect the US.

Now I had to back up a week and a half. Friday the twenty-eighth of August, Common Dreams marks the war entering its sixth month with "no end in sight," and writes that the President said it would be over in a matter of weeks. Weeks. The Wednesday after, the second, the President posts that the Strait of Hormuz is "under USA control," muses about changing the name to TRUMP STRAIT, and adds that it would be "hotter" than ever before.

The pump got there ahead of the press release. Friday the fourth, AAA has diesel at $5.85 a gallon, an all-time high; The Hill names the conflict with Iran and a 58 percent increase, and the Examiner notes the record it broke, $5.81, was set in May 2022. Saturday the fifth, $5.88. Axios has Republicans fretting, one GOP operative saying, "Diesel's at an all-time high." The AP point Common Dreams carried was that diesel moves freight and delivery, so a long list of everyday goods costs more to move. Which country's pump is the $5.88 on?

Also Saturday the fifth: CENTCOM says it permanently disabled three Iranian crude carriers near Kharg Island after "multiple unprovoked" attacks on two Navy warships, no American personnel injured. Three days before that, in Kuhestak, in Hormozgan province, a wedding party was hit — at least five people killed, 68 more in local hospitals. Iranian officials called it a war crime. I'm not going to dress that up.

Wednesday the ninth, the Times: five Iranian oil tankers hit, and Iran answering with missiles at Jordan. That same Wednesday, in Dallas, the President tells a Republican convention every American gets $5,000 if the GOP holds the House and Senate, with no mechanism offered; Thursday the Vice President names tariffs, and CBS News flags the pledge as dubious. Was a mechanism named for the seventh month?

Then Friday the eleventh: Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline after Iran-backed Iraqi militias set it on fire with strikes — that's the New York Post. Saturday the twelfth, ABC News has Riyadh shutting down a key pipeline after multiple attacks, with the Strait of Hormuz still the primary flashpoint. The Post, that same Saturday, adds that Iraq closed two border crossings with Iran during the probe and that Saudi Arabia had doubled its Red Sea oil exports. The Times, same day: Iran and its allies now hold sway over two key oil shipping routes. The Post also puts the war in its seventh month.

Here's the small thing I keep chewing on. There's a toll on the road out to my sister-in-law's, a dollar fifty, and one afternoon I got it in my head to beat it. Twenty-two miles around, past the corner store, back roads, the dog's head out the window the whole way. I beat the toll. The gas I burned going around cost more than the dollar fifty. Both receipts are in the glovebox under the rubber band; the toll one is the small one. Who was I punishing out there?

Oh — excuse me. You've got your keys out already. One more thing and I'll let you go.

The thirty-six sanctions Tuesday were on Iranian airlines. Friday the eleventh, the pipeline that shut was Saudi Arabia's. Saturday, the crossings that closed were Iraq's, the Red Sea exports that doubled were Riyadh's, and the $5.88 is on our side of the water, in the seventh month of a war the President said would take weeks. So when the Examiner printed the administration's own word for it — and I apologize, it's the word I keep coming back to — whose economy had the economic D-Day?