How the American Civil War Offers a Strategy for the United States Against Iran Today

America’s “Operation Economic Outcast” is ramping up financial pain on Iran and denying it trading partners. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent describes it as “economic D-Day,” but it’s more akin to the Civil War’s Anaconda Plan — a patient strategy to squeeze the enemy, aiming to achieve victory with minimal loss of life.“Our objective,” Mr. Bessent told journalists on Monday, “is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.” He described the goal as “economic asphyxiation,” a commercial version of how the anaconda squeezes prey tighter with each exhalation until it can no longer draw breath.In 1861, General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, 75, described his idea to “envelop the insurgent states and bring them to terms with less bloodshed than by any other plan.” Richard Sewell wrote in “A House Divided: Sectionalism and Civil War” that “soon after” the secessionists attacked South Carolina’s Fort Sumter to spark the war, Scott submitted his strategy to President Lincoln. It soon leaked to the press.Like President Trump, who expresses reluctance to kill Iranians, Sewell wrote that Scott wished to “pressure the seceded states back into the Union with minimal loss of blood. His ‘Anaconda Plan,’ as it was somewhat derisively called, proposed a naval blockade of Confederate ports to seal off trade with Europe and occupation of the Mississippi” to split the Confederacy in two.Cartoon map of General Winfield Scott’s ‘Anaconda Plan’ for the North to defeat the Confederate rebellion. Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons“King Cotton” ruled the states in rebellion. They exported the crop and used the revenue to purchase manufactured goods. In Iran, oil reigns supreme, and it imports everything from weapons to gasoline — which Iran International reports is running low at Tehran. Such lack of diversification is a fatal weakness, and, unlike the Confederacy, Iran has a single chokepoint at the Strait of Hormuz, which the United States Navy now controls.Scott, Sewell wrote, was confident that “little more in the way of military action would be required” than the blockade, “since time and economic distress would allow Southern Unionists to regain the upper hand and return their states to the Union.” The New York Sun published a map illustrating the Anaconda Plan while its rival, the New York Tribune, joined those who mocked it in favor of direct conflict.During the Mexican War in the 1840s, Scott had embodied discipline and style, earning the nickname “Old Fuss and Feathers.” Losing the presidential election of 1852 for the Whigs sapped his glory. As he ballooned to over 300 pounds — so large and wracked by gout that he had to be lifted onto his horse — they began calling him “Old Fat and Feeble.”Portrait of General Winfield Scott, circa 1855, by Robert Walter Weir. Via Wikimedia CommonsScott had fought in the War of 1812, the most recent time that armies had clashed on American soil. Having enlisted in 1808, he fought on the Canadian front and reached the rank of brigadier general by the end of the conflict at the age of 27. Such a long military career was rare before America maintained a large, standing army.Lincoln deferred to Scott but had difficulty implementing his plan. Union and Confederate commanders alike had served under Scott and his fellow Whig general, President Taylor, when they captured Mexico City. Both sides were confident that they could repeat that swift victory at home.Blue and gray commanders had also studied together at West Point, which meant they had similar tactics, strategies, and outlook. As a result, the Civil War dragged on through years of maneuvering that mimicked the Napoleonic campaigns in Europe. The loss of life, which Scott had sought to keep at a minimum, increased Northern calls to let the Southern states go.After a siege, General Grant captured Vicksburg, Mississippi, giving the Union control of the river and the rebellion was soon starved for imports; King Cotton was rendered useless. Scott’s strategy prevailed to the point that Georgia considered seceding from the Confederacy.Operation Economic Outcast aims to defeat Iran over time without inflicting a death toll that makes post-war peace more difficult. In 1862, the Cedar Falls Gazette advised Americans that the Anaconda Plan would be “slow,” too, but urged them to withhold judgment. If Scott’s strategy prevailed, the paper wrote, “people will be as ready to praise it as they have been to find fault.”

How the American Civil War Offers a Strategy for the United States Against Iran Today

How the American Civil War Offers a Strategy for the United States Against Iran Today

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