by Jacob G. Hornberger

April 30, 2026

An article in the Wall Street Journal documents some of the horrific consequences of the U.S. war, economic sanctions, and blockade on Iran. Describing the Iranian economy as descending into a “death spiral,” the Journal states, “War has imposed a heavy cost on Iran’s economy: more than a million people out of work, soaring food prices and a prolonged internet shutdown that has slammed online businesses…. Authorities are confronting a level of hardship not seen in decades, according to residents.” The Journal points out, “At the center of the fight is the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas.”

Although they will never admit it publicly, proponents of sanctions and the blockade are ecstatic. This is what they have been hoping for decades. That’s been the aim of the ruthless and brutal economic sanctions — to cause so much economic devastation that the Iranian people are thrown into severe impoverishment and even massive death by starvation and illness. In that way, the hope has always been that the Iranian people would then rise up in a violent revolution, oust their anti-U.S. regime from power, and replace it with a pro-U.S. dictatorship, similar to the one that a CIA coup helped to install in 1953.

There is no doubt that ever since the Iranian revolution in 1979, when the Iranian people rose up against their brutal pro-U.S. dictatorship and violently ousted it from power, U.S. sanctions have produced untold impoverishment and suffering among the Iranian people. But the sanctions also failed to produce regime change.

That’s what the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is ultimately all about (in addition, of course, to getting that pesky Epstein scandal off the front pages) — to achieve regime change, even if that means bombing and killing countless Iranian people, including little girls in elementary schools. It’s also what the U.S.-Israeli assassination spree against Iranian officials has been all about.

Alas, however, still no regime change, notwithstanding President Trump’s statements to the contrary.

Notwithstanding his repeated pronouncements about having won his war on Iran, Trump obviously still can’t let go of his Iranian tar baby. After initially lashing out against Iran for closing the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused — and continues to cause — massive economic damage around the world, Trump dramatically changed directions and instituted his own blockade on the strait.

It’s important that every American understand what Trump’s blockade is all about. As an act of war under international law, the blockade is an amplified form of economic sanctions. Its aim is to do precisely what U.S. officials hoped the sanctions would do — squeeze out the life of the Iranian people as a way to get to their government officials. The idea, again, is that faced with massive death by starvation and illness, the Iranian people will rise up and achieve the regime change long desired by U.S. officials, especially those within the U.S. national-security establishment (I.e., the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA).

The point is one that I have long been emphasizing: Sanctions and, now, the blockade, target innocent people with severe poverty, death, and suffering as a way to achieve a political end. That’s what makes them evil. They work the same way as terrorism, which, of course, also is evil.

Oh sure, there is no doubt that Iran’s closure of the strait does the same thing, which makes its actions evil as well. But what we have here is not a case of good versus evil but rather a case of evil versus evil.

Unfortunately, because economic sanctions have become a normalized tool in the federal government’s foreign-policy arsenal, all too many Americans, including ones who oppose Trump’s war of aggression on Iran and including many who go to church every Sunday, are blasé and nonchalant about the manifest evil undergirding sanctions, embargoes, and blockades — or are even supportive of such evil.

The WSJ article quotes a man named Alex Vatanka, who is a senior fellow and Iran expert at the Middle East Institute: “As the money dries up because of the blockade, we may find that more and more folks have no choice but to mobilize politically.” He is, of course, referring to the possibility that Iranians will rise up and violently achieve regime change.

There is also the possibility, of course, that Iranian officials will capitulate and agree to follow Trump’s orders and edicts, just as the unelected communist-socialist, narco-terrorist dictatorship in Venezuela has done.

But there is also another possibility, one in which there is no capitulation, no rising up, and yet massive death by starvation and illness across the country. If that were to happen, there is no doubt that Trump would go down as one of the greatest Caligulas in history — not among his loyal and subservient MAGA supporters, of course, who would be cheering him on, but rather among the conscientious people of the world.