Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, said on Tuesday, at the same time as the meeting of the finance ministers and heads of the central banks of the G20 countries in Asheville: “Iranians should know that they can become a normal country again; the Iranian people, the Persian people, are great people, and they have the opportunity to return to the international system.”

He added: “They are being suppressed, and a small group cannot remain in power forever.”

Bessent said: “We are burying the poisonous serpent’s head of Iran; the snake still doesn’t know it’s dead, but when the sun sets, it will no longer move.”

Addressing members of the IRGC, Bessent said: “We are tracking the assets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and we are saying this on global television so you know; we know where your accounts are at trust companies in the British Virgin Islands, and we also know your hundred-million-dollar homes across the world.”

The U.S. Treasury Secretary said: “We will go after the assets of the government that have been stolen from the Iranian people; these assets can be returned to the Iranian people or be put at the disposal of victims of terrorism.”