Operation Ayatollah Moneybags

(Foreign Policy) With tensions rising in the Persian Gulf the Trump administration has ratcheted up its sanctions against Iran to an unprecedented level intensifying an existing banking blockade. But the White House has also selected new targets including by placing personal sanctions on the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The attempt to punish Khamenei may seem an expression of petty vindictiveness against Irans top political leader rather than a part of any consistent economic strategy. Regime-affiliated media in Iran have dismissed the move precisely in this way. But the opposite is true: Khamenei is the leader of a vast business empire that sustains the countrys clerical elite and allows it to fund regional conflict and terrorism while shielding it from public accountability. Shedding light on the vast parallel economy that is largely under Khameneis control could be the key to collapsing the very foundation of the regime.