TEHRAN — Iranian officials insist that US President Donald Trump's new economic offensive will fail. But one of the country's most senior security officials has warned that the pressure may deepen domestic grievances to a level that could see Iranians back on the streets.

Hard-line police commander Brig. Gen. Ahmad-Reza Radan said on Monday that Iran's enemies were seeking to create unrest by exploiting an unusually long list of potential triggers: livelihoods, gasoline, the economy and unemployment.

The warning, reported by Tasnim News Agency, came as Washington formally launched Operation Economic Outcast, a sweeping campaign to further isolate Iran and expand the range of activities that could expose foreign companies and countries to US secondary sanctions. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has described the policy as an "unprecedented" whole-of-government campaign against the Islamic Republic and its enablers. 

For Tehran, the immediate challenge is whether another round of US economic warfare can succeed where decades of sanctions and "maximum pressure" did not: not necessarily by collapsing the Islamic Republic, but by making the domestic costs of confrontation increasingly difficult to manage.