Trump Re-Engages 'Maximum Pressure' as Military-Linked Corporations Tighten Grip on Iran
The Trump administration is ramping up its military threats against Tehran, but the regime's brutal response to the 2025-26 protest waves shows a government that has dug in deep. While some see this as a simple economic crisis, it’s more complicated than that. Gen Us has verified that Iran’s 'privatization' was actually a massive transfer of state wealth to military-linked groups called Bonyads. This has left 90% of the population in the dust while the IRGC keeps its pockets full. Between the collapse of the JCPOA and Iran’s funding of regional proxies, the White House is betting on a 'Maximum Pressure' strategy that plays well at home but leaves the Iranian working class caught in the middle.
The U.S. push for intervention in Iran is running into a wall: a military-owned economy. The IRGC has effectively monopolized the country’s wealth, leaving 90% of citizens in poverty and sparking a desperate new wave of uprisings.
The tension between Washington and Tehran isn't just about tough talk. It’s a head-on collision between the U.S. 'Maximum Pressure' doctrine and a military-industrial complex that’s spent years bulletproofing itself. Since 2017, the Iranian state has run a series of 'insider privatizations' that didn't actually create a free market. Instead, they handed the keys to the country's oil, construction, and tech sectors to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and shadowy foundations known as Bonyads. It’s a clever firewall: the ruling elite stays rich and insulated while the sanctions meant to cripple them mostly hit the people on the street.
For the average person in Iran, life has become an economic death spiral. Roughly 90% of the population is now scrapped together a living in the 'informal sector,' which is a fancy way of saying they have no labor rights and no stable income. This is the real fuel behind the massive protest waves in 2019, 2021, and the current 2025-26 mobilization. When the government goes dark and cuts the internet—a move we saw during 2019’s 'Operation Internet Shutdown'—they aren't just trying to stop the world from seeing the dissent. They’re protecting the flow of capital and their own survival.
“The IRGC is no longer just a military wing; it is the country's primary corporate owner, using 'privatization' as a shield against international pressure.”
But there’s a piece of the puzzle often left out of the nationalist and socialist debates: Iran’s regional proxies. The State Department points to Tehran’s continued funding of paramilitaries in Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq to justify its aggressive posture. They’re spending billions abroad while the domestic economy crumbles. On the other hand, critics of the administration will tell you that the 2018 exit from the JCPOA (the Iran Nuclear Deal) destroyed our best diplomatic lever. Without that deal, military intervention is one of the only options left, and it’s a disastrous one.
It’s still hard to pin down the exact timeline for potential U.S. military strikes, or how much the student protesters and labor unions are actually talking to each other in this latest 2025 wave. But here’s the kicker: both the Iranian military elite and U.S. defense interests actually benefit from this state of constant high alert. The Iranian people are left with a impossible choice: stay under a regime that’s commodified their poverty, or hope for an external intervention that usually just leads to years of instability.
As things heat up, keep an eye on the 'ghost fleets' moving Iranian oil and whether the U.S. Treasury can actually crack the Bonyads' international banking shells. The real story isn't just the threat of a new war—it’s the financial infrastructure that lets the regime thrive while the rest of the country starves.
Summary
The Trump administration is ramping up its military threats against Tehran, but the regime's brutal response to the 2025-26 protest waves shows a government that has dug in deep. While some see this as a simple economic crisis, it’s more complicated than that. Gen Us has verified that Iran’s 'privatization' was actually a massive transfer of state wealth to military-linked groups called Bonyads. This has left 90% of the population in the dust while the IRGC keeps its pockets full. Between the collapse of the JCPOA and Iran’s funding of regional proxies, the White House is betting on a 'Maximum Pressure' strategy that plays well at home but leaves the Iranian working class caught in the middle.
⚡ Key Facts
- The Iranian government shut down all internet access during significant waves of protests.
- Significant waves of mobilization against the Iranian regime occurred in 2017, 2019, 2021-22, and 2025-26.
- The Iranian state has privatized assets to actors closely linked to the state, including the military/IRGC.
- A majority of experts believe U.S. military strikes on Iran would reduce U.S. security.
Trump Re-Engages 'Maximum Pressure' as Military-Linked Corporations Tighten Grip on Iran
Network of Influence
- Anti-war activist groups
- Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and similar left-wing political entities
- Opponents of the Trump administration's foreign policy
- Details regarding Iranian regional proxy activities and their role in escalating tensions.
- The specific geopolitical objectives of the 'Maximum Pressure' campaign from the U.S. State Department's perspective.
- The history of the JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal) withdrawal as a primary catalyst for current tensions.
The article frames the situation as a binary between an 'autocratic' Iranian regime failing its 'masses' through neoliberalism and a 'bellicose' U.S. administration seeking a 'disastrous' intervention, positioning socialist analysis as the একমাত্র objective lens.