In mid-April 2026, the Trump administration pressed an invisible "launch button" - code-named "Economic Fury," a reinforced sanctions action against Iran, officially depicted as a total assault to "use all available tools and power to strangle the Iranian economy." More than a month later, by May 23, "Economic Fury" showed no essential differences in execution from past sanctions, merely tightening existing measures, while Iran still made no substantive concessions on key political and security issues. According to former U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Richard Nephew, the U.S. had "reached the limits" of sanctions against Iran's economy, its toolbox nearly emptied, yet still awaited a capitulation from the other side. In this deadlock of "sanctions maxed out, opponent unyielding," Trump declared on May 23 that the prospects of reaching a good agreement and launching airstrikes were "roughly fifty-fifty," announcing that he would meet with negotiation representatives that day to discuss Tehran's latest proposal, with a decision on whether to restore war with Iran to be made within 24 hours, effectively compressing the choice from agreement to war into a substantive countdown. At the same time, negotiations between the White House and Anthropic regarding the use of its AI tools by U.S. intelligence agencies were nearing completion, seen as a landmark event marking the first large-scale entry of AI into the U.S. intelligence system: as sanctions hit their limit and the shadow of war loomed, an unimplemented intelligent system was quietly being integrated into the decision-making center in Washington, becoming one of the least visible variables behind this choice.

Economic Fury's Month of Assault: Iran Still Unyielding

"Economic Fury" was initiated around April 16, 2026. The Trump team defined this operation as an all-out offensive: deploying "all available tools and power" to strike Iran's economy, tightening every possible valve to the max. In Washington's narrative, this was an escalatory action meant to drag the opponent into a suffocating zone, laying the groundwork for upcoming negotiations and potential military decisions. However, a research briefing assessed that aside from more aggressive slogans and a tighter pace, "Economic Fury" showed no essential differences in execution from the previous years of pressure on Iran; it was still the same old playbook, just with an increased dosage, and hardly any new pressure tools were presented.

One month later, the results were far below what many hawks had hinted at in the media regarding "quick effectiveness." As of May 23, 2026, assessments from a single source indicated that "Economic Fury" had not compelled Iran to make substantive concessions on key political and security issues, with Tehran maintaining its original negotiating posture under high pressure. Former U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Richard Nephew even openly lamented that the U.S. had "reached the limits" of sanctions against Iran's economy, effectively admitting that the tools in the toolbox had been largely exhausted. Against this backdrop, every new round of increasingly hyperbolic economic strikes saw diminishing marginal deterrent power, with Washington hearing its own escalating rhetoric echo far louder than any compromises coming from the other side.

Sanctions Have Reached Their Limits: What More Can the U.S. Do to Pressure Iran?

The declaration of "Economic Fury" to mobilize "all available tools and power" essentially resembled a leaked confession: nearly all feasible measures had been tried. Coupled with the research briefing's statement that "current intensified sanctions are similar to previous strategies, with limited new tools," this round of action resembled cranking up an old script to a higher volume rather than switching to a new one. Richard Nephew, who previously designed punitive tools against Iran, now stated that the U.S. had "reached the limits" of sanctions on Iran's economy, effectively confirmed from a bureaucratic perspective that the sanctions toolbox was not only depleted but that no genuinely new weapons could be found through repetition.

The problem lay in the fact that as of May 23, under this "extreme version" of pressure, Iran still refused to take a step back on key political and security issues (according to a single source), which subtly weakened the U.S.'s bargaining chips at the negotiation table: the opponent had already demonstrated through reality that "one more round" did not automatically equate to "one more inch of concession." From Washington's calculations, each additional escalation brought limited new substantive pressure, but the political and diplomatic costs incurred began to rise - internally, the need to explain why old tools were repeatedly used, and externally, the necessity to clarify why repeated escalations did not yield results. Under the dual pressure of sanction space nearing exhaustion and diminishing deterrent effects, the U.S. path to pressuring Iran was pushed to a crossroads: either risk even higher stakes by considering more aggressive options or acknowledge the limits of economic strikes and shift to a forced policy adjustment or even partial rollback.

The Balancing Act of the Last Day: Agreement or Bombers Taking Off

On May 23, Trump boiled this Iran gambling game down to a bare statistic - "a good agreement" and "air strikes" each held a 50% stake. He publicly announced that he would meet with negotiation representatives that day to discuss Tehran's latest proposal while also stating that he might decide as soon as Sunday, May 24, whether to "resume war with Iran." In terms of rhetoric design, this was no longer the traditional "dragging it out" tactic, but rather a coarse compression of the entire trajectory from signing an agreement to issuing bombing orders into a time window of less than 24 hours, making all relevant parties acutely aware that since sanctions were difficult to escalate, the only usable chips remaining were "signing" and "taking off."

On this final day, the incentives and risks at both ends of the scale were clearer than ever before. Continuing negotiations meant acknowledging, in the context of "Economic Fury" not yet having pried key concessions out of Iran, and with internal experts evaluating that sanction tools had "reached their limits," that the upper limit of purely economic strikes had been recognized, striving to extract a "good" agreement from limited chips for internal declaration; this could avoid another Middle Eastern war and aligned with Trump's persona as the "deal-making president," but risked appearing weak in the eyes of hawks and letting Tehran see through U.S. cards. Conversely, choosing military strikes could prove that threats were not just bluster, temporarily making up for the loss of face from unsuccessful sanctions, but would carry the high risk of loss of control, escalation of regional conflicts, and U.S. casualties and long-term involvement. At this juncture, agreements for the integration of AI tools from Anthropic into the intelligence system were also nearing completion, providing a new technological backdrop for intelligence analysis and target identification in similar future crises, making May 24 not just a historical checkpoint for testing the success or failure of sanctions and threatening strategies, but also a turning point for the U.S.-Iran gambling game shifting from singular economic pressure to a more complex decision-making structure.

AI Enters the Intelligence Core: Anthropic Steps into the White House's View

At the cusp of the U.S.-Iran standoff teetering between war and a fifty-fifty chance of agreement, a seemingly technical arrangement was taking shape within the White House: the U.S. government was nearing an agreement with Anthropic to allow AI tools running on this company to be regularly utilized within the intelligence system. The research briefing viewed this step as a landmark action - AI tools being integrated into the "large-scale" application framework of the U.S. intelligence system, no longer just sporadic experiments or marginal assistance, but pushed to the forefront of the intelligence production chain. The details of the agreement remain closely guarded, including which agencies are involved and what permissions are held, but the symbolic significance is clear enough: tech companies are no longer merely contractors observing geopolitical crises but are to be directly embedded in the perception, judgment, and execution processes of national security.

This means that when Trump placed "good agreement" and "air strikes" on the same scale on May 23, he was holding not only a sanctions toolbox that had been internally assessed as "near its limits" but also an intelligence perception system on the cusp of an upgrade. The research briefing highlighted that such AI tools could reshape processes in areas like sifting through vast amounts of information, identifying risk patterns, and filtering potential targets, thereby changing the battlefield outlines and risk curves visible to decision-makers: the same group of intelligence on Iran might appear as nebulous trends to human analysts but could be emphasized as "high-risk samples" by algorithms. At a moment where sanctions had reached their peak and bombs and negotiation tables were listed as options, bringing AI into the intelligence core essentially layered a technical filter over the future U.S.-Iran gambling game, with the real suspense lying in whether this layer would amplify global impulses for restraint or make the war launch button appear easier to press.

Sanctions, War, and AI: The New Normal in the U.S.-Iran Gambling Game

As "Economic Fury" failed to elicit substantive concessions from Iran on key issues after weeks of high pressure, and with the former Iranian deputy envoy judging that the sanctions tools had "reached their limits," U.S. policy toward Iran was pushed to a stark crossroads: in the face of nearly exhausted means, should it recognize the difficulty of achieving rapid victories through sanctions, pivoting to a vague, limited agreement, or accept the high-cost combination of prolonged standoff and periodic military escalations? Now it was May 24, 2026, the day after Trump had publicly marked the probability of "good agreement" and "air strikes" at 50% each, placing war and negotiation nearly on the same table of chips. The future norm of U.S.-Iran relations seemed set to oscillate between three forms: sometimes cooling off with temporary agreements, sometimes maintaining a hostile balance through continuous economic pressure, and at times rapidly escalating military tempo over specific triggers. Unlike before, the nearing conclusion of AI agreement negotiations between the White House and Anthropic signified that the next round of sanctions calibrations, risk assessments, and even target selections would increasingly involve algorithms in designing the rhythm and cost structure, determining whether the U.S.-Iran gambling game leaning toward restrained "precise conflict management" or marred by misjudgment escalations arguably depended on how much policymakers were willing to see this new AI chip as a safety valve rather than a trigger.

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