UNITED States-Iran tensions are straining regional security and weakening the regional economy. Sporadic military actions between them show that an off-ramp is not on the horizon, underscoring the conflict’s deepening. The American strategy of attrition and Iran’s retaliatory actions raise alarms because they could escalate the conflict, with catastrophic consequences. Indeed, the recent US strikes on an Iranian wedding party and an oil tanker have further complicated the mediators’ efforts to restart the negotiations for the execution of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding by convening the technical committees’ meetings.
The US military is unmatched, but protracted asymmetrical warfare has its own dynamics. Therefore, achieving the desired objectives with military might seems impossible in the ongoing war with Iran. Since the ceasefire in April 2026, the US has refrained from targeting major cities in Iran or its military and political leadership. This restraint enabled Iran to repair and rebuild its military industries, including those involved in missile and drone production. Moreover, the Iranian regime’s popularity has not been undermined because of the nationalistic forces’ demand for revenge. Even as the rial loses value, inflation rises, and gasoline shortages occur, these have not triggered a popular uprising. So, the absence of popular uprising against the Islamic Republic indicates the regime’s survivability and continuous resistance to US aggression.
The US and Iran have been maximizing their control over the Strait of Hormuz. They are employing the geoeconomic approach to overwhelm the adversary. For Tehran, closing the Strait and bottling up one-fifth of the world’s crude oil supply is an important military tactic to compel the American Gulf allies and other oil and gas importing countries to pressure Washington collectively to end the war. Both sides believe that by squeezing the Strait of Hormuz, they can outlast their foe. So far, neither side’s assumptions have yielded the desired results.
The Trump administration realizes the repercussions of the closure on its allies; therefore, it has opted for multifaceted countermeasures. It conducts military strikes to end Iran’s control of the Strait. Besides, Washington has been struggling to economically isolate Iran. The US Navy imposed a blockade to contain Iranian trade while thwarting Tehran’s shipments. Consequently, Iran’s oil shipping has been curtailed since July 2026. Washington also announced new sanctions on Iran. For instance, last week the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on a Turkish bank and its subsidiaries over alleged ties to Iran.
The US is successfully assisting Gulf Arab states, despite Iranian drone and missile attacks, in moving significant amounts of their crude through the Strait of Hormuz. This tactic is keeping global oil prices from surging above critical levels. As a result, crude oil prices remain below $100 a barrel on international markets. Samir Madani, co-founder of the maritime intelligence firm TankerTrackers.com, opined that “The Iranian blockade is more leaky than the U.S. blockade. The Iranians just aren’t able to shut it all down.”
The continuity of oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz exposes Iran’s limited ability to control the waterway. According to the last week’s estimates of TankerTrackers.com, “an average of about 5 million barrels a day of crude oil, almost none of it Iranian, exited the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz over the previous 28 days, along with roughly 2.5 million barrels via oil ports on the Gulf of Oman, such as Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates. These exports represent more than 40% of the region’s prewar flow of oil.” Hence, Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has not triggered a worldwide energy crisis or forced President Trump to end the war on Iranian terms. Yet Iranians think that the continuity of conflict will make Trump’s Republican Party feel pain at the midterm polls in November 2026.
Will Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz be undermined by the U.S. military campaign, especially a naval blockade in the region in the coming days? Certainly, the ineffective blockade undermines Tehran’s bargaining power at the negotiation table. It leaves Iran with two options: to cave in to U.S. demands, or to escalate the conflict horizontally and vertically. Realistically, both these options will be devastating for the ruling elite in Tehran.
The US and Iran are trapped in a conflict without an exit strategy. Neither the Trump administration nor the Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei government has developed an exit strategy acceptable to their domestic audience. Hence, mediation for a durable truce between them has become a daunting task. Despite their rigid and unpredictable behavior, the Pakistani leadership has been striving to restart dialogue between Tehran and Washington to implement the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding signed in June 2026 and to ease the international economy by normalizing the Strait of Hormuz.
—The writer is Vice Chancellor of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.
