Iran says US sanctions policy has become “compulsive addiction”

Washington’s reliance on escalating sanctions has become a dangerous addiction, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei has said.

In a post on X, he remarked that whenever Washington demonstrates its inability to adhere to diplomacy, it resorts to sanctions, and whenever those sanctions fail to produce results, it simply increases the dose, Caliber.Az reports.

“This is no longer 'policy'—it is 'habit'; and more dangerously still, it is an addiction that has displaced thought itself,” he wrote.

The US Secretary of the Treasury has boasted of “suffocating” Iran through economic sanctions.

Beyond its sheer pathos, the claim is a stark testament to America’s compulsive addiction to sanctions. Whenever Washington proves itself incapable of pursuing diplomacy, it retreats…

— Esmaeil Baqaei (@IRIMFA_SPOX) August 10, 2026

Baghaei made clear that recent remarks by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the United States had managed to “have them by the throat” through economic sanctions were “stark testament to America’s compulsive addiction to sanctions.”

“Iran has demonstrated over decades that it will not be strangled by these exhausted refrains. The real risk is that American politicians, clinging to this bad habit, will instead strangle their own remaining chances of a less humiliating exit from a crisis of their own making,” the MFA spokesperson added.

On Friday, Bessent said in an interview with 12News that the United States had managed to “have them by the throat.”

According to him, food inflation in Iran has reached “150–180%,” and the country is unable to pay its military personnel.

By Bakhtiyar Abbasov