Bessent Moves to Military Base After Iranian Threats Against His Life

Three people described the move to The New York Times on condition of anonymity. They said US officials had concluded in recent weeks that Iranian plotting against current and former American officials had reached a more advanced stage, a judgement based partly on intelligence about threats to Bessent himself. How severe those threats are is unclear, and US officials have said Iran's ability to carry out large-scale attacks in the United States and abroad is limited.

The relocation puts a personal cost on the strategy Washington has chosen for the war it started with Iran on February 28. Since August, Bessent has run the administration's economic pressure campaign, which Reuters said is known as Operation Economic Outcast and which aims to isolate Iran financially through tighter sanctions and restrictions on trade routes. The people told the Times that the role had made him one of the officials Iran most wants to harm.

A Treasury Department spokesperson said Bessent "will not be deterred by the Iranian regime's threats" and remained committed to carrying out the campaign to squeeze Iran's economy.

A central aim of the campaign is to cut off money to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which controls much of the country's economy as well as being its most powerful military arm. The administration hopes the pressure will spare it from resuming major military operations. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told G7 counterparts this week that President Donald Trump had chosen an economic squeeze over either renewed war or a deal.

Bessent and other officials say the measures are working, shrinking Iran's economy, driving the collapse of its currency and sharply lowering living standards. But two officials with direct knowledge of US intelligence told the Times that Iran's hard-line leadership appears determined to hold on to power at almost any cost, which suggests economic pain alone may not bring about regime change.

Bessent is the latest senior Trump administration official to leave a Washington-area home for a military base or other protected housing. At least half a dozen did so last year, including Stephen Miller, now White House chief of staff, and Pam Bondi, then attorney general. The administration has not disclosed the full scope of threats against its senior officials, and not all of them involve Iran.

The move follows other precautions in the region. Last month the US government put employees across the Middle East on heightened alert and began reducing staff at embassies and consulates, citing intelligence that Iran was in advanced stages of planning attacks on Americans. The US military also abruptly moved bombers from a base in the United Kingdom after a suspected terrorist plot against the site.

Iran has targeted Trump since January 2020, when he ordered the drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force. In 2024, federal prosecutors charged Farhad Shakeri, whom they described as a Guard operative, with plotting to kill Trump in retaliation.