--- title: The US Has One Last Option in Iran (Opinion) description: "Headed into this weekend, it appeared that the United States was determined to fully reignite its conflict with the Islamic Republic after several days of relative quiet. On Saturday, Donald Trump posted that he was “locked and loaded and ready to go” against Iran, at a scale “not seen since World War II”. While the president has continuously made threats throughout this war only to back down as the deadline draws near, off the record briefings suggested this might be the real deal." url: https://fronts.co/article/the-us-has-one-last-option-in-iran-opinion.md canonical: https://fronts.co/article/the-us-has-one-last-option-in-iran-opinion/ datePublished: 2026-08-05T14:00:49.000Z dateModified: 2026-08-05T15:23:55.000Z author: - name: Kyle Moran url: https://fronts.co/authors/kyle-moran/ publisher: Fronts image: "https://media.fronts.co/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,height=630,fit=cover,gravity=auto,quality=80,format=auto/images/articles/the-us-has-one-last-option-in-iran-opinion-3e8c9ca0.jpg" type: NewsArticle language: en tokens: 5441 --- Headed into this weekend, it appeared that the United States was determined to fully reignite its conflict with the Islamic Republic after several days of relative quiet. On Saturday, Donald Trump [posted](https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2083736721586368904) that he was “locked and loaded and ready to go” against Iran, at a scale “not seen since World War II”. While the president has continuously made threats throughout this war only to back down as the deadline draws near, off the record briefings suggested this might be the real deal. It wasn’t. Whether that decision was ultimately the result of a reported lobbying effort from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, actual developments with the Islamic Republic at the negotiating table, or some other external factor is something that only time will tell.  What is clear, however, is that the United States has run out of good options to wrap up the Iran campaign in a short time period. Worse still, the widely reported interceptor shortage, compounded by a severely delayed development and deployment of counter-drone interceptor systems, have weakened Washington’s ability to maintain any long-term military campaign against the Islamic Republic. And yet, the United States cannot simply “opt out” of this war after having initiated it in the first place. The ramifications of allowing Iran to permanently control the Strait of Hormuz by way of their recently established Persian Gulf Strait Authority, along with the tolls they plan to charge for safe passage through it, are grave and have been well documented in[ Fronts](https://fronts.co/video/the-hormuz-toll-could-break-the-world-economy/) as well as [elsewhere](https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/iran-must-not-rule-the-strait-of-hormuz).  They are worth revisiting at this stage though, because Washington appears more than ever to be without any clear strategy on how to deliver on its core objectives and, at times, what its core objectives even are. While this is a highly unenviable position, the only realistic option that remains at Washington’s disposal is the continuation of the naval blockade against the Islamic Republic *without *a return to any large-scale kinetic action, until Tehran is willing to formally state in a written agreement that they will allow the free passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. This runs contrary to the desires of various hardline factions inside the Islamic Republic, particularly the Paydari Front, which has aggressively been pushing for complete Iranian control over not just the Strait, but also partial jurisdiction over Emirati and Omani ports. Nevertheless, Operation Economic Fury—launched as the successor to Operation Epic Fury earlier this year—appears to have been the only tactic that Washington has been able to successfully wield against Tehran. However, given that it was interrupted initially by the hastily-reached and vaguely-worded memorandum of understanding, and then a return to on-again, off-again kinetic strikes, Washington effectively released its pressure on the Islamic Republic too soon. **The Air Campaign’s Limits** Had Donald Trump gone through with his promise to strike Iran last weekend, there is minimal chance that Washington would find itself in a different strategic position today. Since Operation Epic Fury was launched back on February 28th, Washington and Jerusalem have tried a variety of tactics from the air, including targeting senior-level regime officials, [targeting](https://www.ajc.org/news/the-iran-strikes-explained-how-we-got-here-and-what-it-means) the domestic repression militia known as the Basij, damaging or outright destroying significant portions of Iran’s industrial capabilities, and more. The results are not encouraging. While the Islamic Republic has sustained enormous damage that will take years to rebuild from, many of their core abilities to stay in the fight have not been degraded to any significant extent. The bombing campaign was able to reduce Iranian missile launches by a significant extent in the outset of the war that extended the stockpile of Washington’s already limited interceptors; yet it rapidly reached something of a floor. For example, the IRGC reportedly [launched](https://x.com/HormuzLetter/status/2084036064126378174) on Sunday an anti-ship cruise missile from the city of Sirik towards the Strait of Hormuz, with UKMTO [reporting](https://x.com/UK_MTO/status/2084043922519572654) that a loud explosion was heard near a civilian ship. Whether this is the same missile, and whether it made contact with its target or not, is essentially a secondary issue when it comes to the bigger picture—reports indicate that the US has [repeatedly hit Sirik](https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/explosions-heard-near-sirik-southern-iran) in its strikes throughout July, yet the regime remains able to launch missiles from the city.  Washington is not blind to the shortage of interceptors and the constraints it places on any ability to conduct a long-term operation against the Islamic Republic, and has been evaluating different options to break the current stalemate. One such proposal is that of Admiral Brad Cooper, who was [reportedly pushing](https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/the-u-s-commander-with-a-two-week-plan-to-escalate-strikes-in-iran-0ce32cb2) for an escalated two-week campaign against Tehran on the belief that a sufficiently large-scale bombing run would be able to do significant damage to Iran’s missile threats, thus alleviating the impact of the interceptor shortage. Cooper is almost certainly right that Washington would be able to further reduce Iranian missile launch capabilities from current levels, especially if the US significantly increases the intensity of its bombing. The question, then, is what this would actually buy the US.  The answer to that appears to be less than some in the Pentagon might wish for. As was the case with the earlier days of the war, achieving a reduction—or even a significant reduction—in missile launches can only accomplish so much. In a  country roughly the size of Alaska with launch sites dispersed across the entirety of its interior, it is highly unlikely that the US would be able to eliminate their launch capabilities if the regime remains intact. Furthermore, US assessments [published](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/05/07/cia-intelligence-iran-trump-blockade-missiles/) in The Washington Post in May [estimated](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/05/07/cia-intelligence-iran-trump-blockade-missiles/) that Iran retained some 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile, indicating that over a month of sustained bombing yielded only limited results in reducing their overall capacity. While the exact specifications of what the US is currently using to shoot down Iranian drones remain classified, the Army recently released information that Washington does have *some *Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or C-UAS, in the region and is [actively intercepting](https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2026/7/20/raytheon-scaling-coyote-effector-production-for-operation-epic-fury) Iranian drone attacks. These only began to roll out in significant numbers *after *the launch of Operation Epic Fury. It is highly likely that the US remains reliant on Patriot, Tomahawk, THAAD, and other such interceptors to at least partially combat Iranian drone attacks. Beyond missiles, the drone front risks being worse for Washington—Iranian officials have variously claimed enormous increases in production output, ranging from tripling to a tenfold increase. These claims, especially those on the higher end, should be treated skeptically given the inherent propagandistic value in advertising a production that, apparently, cannot be bombed out of existence.  Regardless of whatever the true figure is, it is widely agreed that Iran *is *still producing large numbers of drones—meaning that Cooper's two weeks could buy a lower launch rate and little else. The case for spending them rests on the five months already spent, which is how wars get extended past the point anyone can say what they are for. **Strategy, Interrupted** Shortly after a ceasefire was reached between the United States and Iran on April 8th, Washington rolled out what it called Operation Economic Fury, which consisted of the imposition of a blockade on any shipping entering or leaving Iranian ports, and significantly expanded sanctions against shell companies Tehran had long relied on to funnel money through. Contrary to public perception, the Islamic Republic had been free to continue to sell its oil and petrochemical products throughout the entirety of the kinetic phase of the war through its expansive shadow fleet, much of which was done at elevated wartime prices. The economic component of the war was, by far, the most successful for Washington. Iranian seaboard crude exports [fell](https://www.kpler.com/blog/us-blockade-iran-starts-feeling-the-heat) from a pre-war range of roughly 1.67 million barrels a day to under 300,000 by the end of May, according to tracking data from Kpler. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies reported that Iran exported no crude at all in May, down from 2.1 million barrels a day in February, while export revenues fell below $200 million versus a rough baseline of *twenty times* that before the war. FDD put the combined daily damage from the blockade at roughly $435 million, and Oxford Economics estimated it could cut off 70 percent of Iranian export income altogether. In addition to the physical interception of the vast majority of Iranian exports via sea, shining light on the [nearly 1,500 tankers](https://www.wsj.com/business/logistics/a-shadow-fleet-smuggles-illicit-oil-across-the-high-seas-this-is-how-it-works-eb8c9954?mod=article_inline) that make up Tehran’s global shadow fleet further allowed the Treasury to ramp up pressure. Importantly, Washington has been willing to flag banks dealing with the small Chinese refiners that buy much of Iran’s crude. The heart of the blockade rests on blocking Iran's ability to export fuel for long enough that it runs out of storage and ultimately needs to shut down drilling at least in certain fields. These operations are unlike a simple on-and-off switch—once drilling halts, the drill site is oftentimes either damaged or rendered completely inoperative.  The largest obstacle to this campaign being successful was always going to be the timetable, which is a political issue in the US given the upcoming midterm elections in November. It’s also inherently a strategy that the president’s impatient nature would struggle to be able to maintain. A long-term blockade essentially abandons the idea of Hormuz returning to pre-war levels (at least temporarily)—though any cost of that must be weighed against the fact that the period *without *a blockade saw almost no meaningful impact given Iran’s willingness to keep the body of water closed.  Before the memorandum of understanding was reached between the Islamic Republic and the United States in June, the operation was showing results. In late May, Kayrros [assessed](https://www.kayrros.com/blog/the-us-blockade-is-putting-pressure-on-iran-but-its-oil-industry-can-still-hold-out/) that Iran had roughly six weeks before hitting zero day on running out of storage, and Bloomberg had previously reported that they were dramatically cutting oil production in order to extend what little storage capacity they had left. Just a few weeks later, the memorandum of understanding—which was reached partially because of the Reformist camp inside the Iranian government pressing for a deal that lifted the blockade to help stabilize the economy—was reached and almost immediately began to allow Iran to start selling oil. Unlike before the war, they were no longer relegated to using their shadow fleet to export crude—they could do it on the international market, and wasted little time selling as much as possible. TankerTrackers [estimates](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy-and-environment/4646545/iran-6-billion-oil-shipments-us-blockade/) that Tehran was able to sell more than 80 million barrels of crude while the MOU was in place between June 18th and July 13th, significantly alleviating the pressure on their energy storage capacity. Subsequent reporting highlighted that the re-imposed blockade was able to intercept some 30 million of those barrels, given that it took several weeks to physically get enough tankers to Iranian ports after the first blockade was lifted. Regardless, 50 million barrels plus an additional 30 million in potentially new storage is a significant setback that the new blockade is starting from. Because of the collapse of the MOU and the recently re-imposed blockade, the Islamic Republic’s economy is in a severely weakened position entering August. The rial has reached all-time lows, clocking in at nearly 2 million to the US dollar, which is a significant crash from levels around 900,000 to the dollar just last summer. That has had significant economic effects in the country, where Iranian state figures, which are inherently prone to understate economic turmoil, put point-to-point [inflation at 88 percent](https://iranfocus.com/economy/58503-irans-statistical-center-point-to-point-inflation-in-july-reached-nearly-88/) in July.  More broadly, the economy remains a massive point of vulnerability that hardliner factions have largely been so far unwilling to address. Tehran acknowledged last month that roughly 230 million cubic meters per day of its prewar natural gas output had been lost to American and Israeli bombing, which is one genuine long-term impact that the aerial campaign had. An Iran free from international sanctions and flush with the $300 billion in internationally raised reconstruction funds would be able to reconstruct these in relatively short order, but prolonging the economic phase of the war inherently makes any such reconstruction increasingly unlikely. Since the MOU collapsed, Washington has reinstated the blockade on July 14th, and it remains in place. It’s starting from a weakened position given the relief Iran bought through the previous deal, but unless the regime is willing to guarantee free shipping through Hormuz, it’s one worth enforcing. **When You Break It, You Buy It** Two obvious objections to all of this are that the regime is simply too focused on its own survival to be willing to surrender something like control of Hormuz simply because of economic pain, and that even if it *could *be achieved, it would simply take too long and be too costly to see through. These are worth taking seriously, but ultimately don’t carry water. In the case of the former, it’s certainly true that the regime is historically unwilling to bend to popular will, even when it means significant suffering for the Iranian people, who have lived under some of the most intense international sanctions packages for years. However, even this has its limits. The regime, particularly with its hardline factions, is concerned about survival above all else—and in 2026, this inherently means that they cannot indefinitely opt out of having a functional economy. The protests back in January that ultimately resulted in tens of thousands of Iranian civilians being slaughtered by regime forces were kicked off by the failing economy, after a cash-strapped Tehran removed badly needed subsidies for the Bazaari merchants.  While a return to protests on that scale is unlikely given the severity of the crackdown, the regime learned that stabilizing the economy likely had a role to play in its continued survival. None of which means Tehran is likely to fold quickly, and the hardliners in Tehran are extremely unwilling to give up any control over Hormuz. This is partially understandable given the outsized leverage that it has given the Islamic Republic. However, Iran did *not *control Hormuz before the war, and had no trouble shutting it down once the bombing started. Fundamentally, the Strait isn’t going anywhere—whether Tehran actually sets up a permanent toll booth along the waterway is a separate question from whether it’s able to close it again in future conflicts. The second objection is more understandable, given [reports](https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-us-navy-is-officially-stretched-beyond-its-limits) that the US Navy is already stretched thin, and that the costs of this war are going to come in well above what the administration originally allocated for. At this point though, Washington has to look at this as triage mode, because the implications of its demonstrated inability and, at times, unwillingness to stay the course are already rearing their ugly heads. Last month, the Houthi rebels in Yemen [announced](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/20/yemens-houthis-declare-naval-blockade-of-saudi-arabia-what-to-know) a full blockade on Saudi Arabia—and while their ability to enforce this will almost certainly be limited to areas in the south and central Red Sea, the precedent is already emerging: for countries and groups that happen to sit along an important body of water, the best leverage they have is to use Iranian-style, asymmetric warfare techniques to shut down whatever traffic they don’t want flowing through, and watch as the world struggles to mount a sufficient response. Indeed, it appears that the Houthis are already in discussions with Iran on how they can establish toll systems in the Bab el-Mandeb, which is a strait off the coast of Yemen of critical importance to the international energy market. That would be a concerning development in and of itself, but is worsened by the fact that it does not appear that the Houthis are considering such a move in defense of Iran, but rather as a separate, independent action to achieve their own domestic interests.  Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago [recently took to the pages of Foreign Affairs](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/iran-and-new-rules-global-power-pape)* *to essentially argue that this is a turning point in geopolitics on par with the 1991 Gulf War, but inverted. Instead of demonstrating American dominance and ability to strike globally, achieve strategic objectives, and withdraw, Pape argues that the US has demonstrated its own limitations, and thus we are likely to see more groups rushing to pull off their own Hormuz-style blockade. While it is impossible to argue that American military prowess has not suffered a hit due to both the lack of planning heading into this war, and the inability to force open the Strait of Hormuz since, Pape’s argument is likely premature. The US has not committed forces to actually forcing open Hormuz at this point, which reflects the reluctance of the current commander in chief, *not *the actual capabilities of the US military.  The situation that the United States finds itself in is entirely of its own making, but that doesn’t alleviate the importance of not abandoning freedom of navigation in Hormuz, nor of curtailing the Islamic Republic’s desire for regional domination. Given the situation and lack of viable alternatives, maintaining the current blockade and expanding sanctions to whatever companies have not yet been included remains Washington’s—and by extension, the international community’s—best bet. It will be costly, and it will require long-term commitment. But all the alternatives are significantly worse. <!-- generated-faq --> ## FAQ ### What made Trump's weekend threat seem different? On Saturday, Donald Trump posted that he was 'locked and loaded and ready to go' against Iran at a scale 'not seen since World War II'. Off-the-record briefings also suggested the strike might be genuine this time, unlike previous threats. ### Why can't the US sustain a long Iran campaign? The widely reported interceptor shortage, compounded by severely delayed counter-drone interceptor systems, has weakened this ability. Washington would also struggle to conduct long-term operations due to these constraints. ### What was Admiral Cooper's proposed strategy? Admiral Brad Cooper reportedly pushed for a two-week escalated bombing campaign, believing large-scale strikes could significantly damage Iran's missile threats and alleviate interceptor shortages. ### How much of Iran's missile stockpile remains? US assessments published in The Washington Post in May estimated Iran retained some 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile. Over a month of sustained bombing yielded only limited results in reducing overall capacity. ### How effective was the economic blockade? Iranian seaboard crude exports fell from roughly 1.67 million barrels daily to under 300,000 by end of May. FDD reported zero crude exports in May, with revenues below $200 million versus roughly twenty times that prewar. ### How close was Iran to running out of oil storage? Kayrros assessed in late May that Iran had roughly six weeks before hitting zero storage capacity. Bloomberg reported Iran was dramatically cutting production to extend remaining storage. ### How much oil did Iran sell under the June deal? TankerTrackers estimates Tehran sold over 80 million barrels between June 18th and July 13th while the MOU was active. The re-imposed blockade intercepted about 30 million of those barrels. ### What precedent is emerging from the Houthi actions? The Houthi rebels announced a full blockade on Saudi Arabia, and appear to be discussing establishing toll systems in the Bab el-Mandeb independently of Iran, not in defense of Tehran. <!-- /generated-faq -->