Iran’s Strait of Hormuz Gambit and the Limits of U.S. Military Power

The current standoff between the United States and Iran is no longer a clash of capabilities but rather a struggle of political endurance and bargaining leverage. The United States began the conflict with broad, but often unclear, goals that included stopping Iran’s nuclear program, weakening Iran’s missile and conventional military capabilities, and regime change. It is now a contest involving maritime coercion, domestic political constraints, and even great power competition. The result is a war whose trajectory is less defined by battlefield outcomes than by each side’s expectations about the other’s willingness to bear costs.

At the operational level, the conflict has settled into a paradoxical equilibrium: Iran has sought to disrupt global energy flows through a de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, while the United States has responded by “blockading the blockaders,” blocking traffic to and from Iranian ports. Tehran’s tool kit—drones, naval mines, and swarming small boats—imposes risk and uncertainty, even if it is no match for the U.S. Navy. The U.S. blockade is inflicting severe economic pain on a country that, even before the war, faced a disastrous economic situation.

Washington retains the capacity to clear mines, escort shipping, and suppress Iranian naval assets using Marines and special operations forces. Yet this is not a costless proposition. President Donald Trump is worried, rightly, that even limited Iranian successes in killing U.S. ground troops in such operations could prove a political disaster for him.

Iranian leaders—particularly within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—appear to believe, with some justification, that they can endure economic and military pressure longer than the United States. The conflict demonstrated Iran’s ability to threaten the Strait of Hormuz. Prior to the war, this capability was often discussed but never tested; now it constitutes Iran’s best lever to pressure the United States in negotiations. For the Iranian regime, the conflict is existential, while for most Americans, it is best over and forgotten, with the hope that prices at the pump will fall soon.

This divergence shapes expectations about escalation. If Iranian actors assume that Washington will ultimately seek an exit, they have incentives to prolong the confrontation, betting that incremental pressure will yield concessions. Conversely, U.S. policymakers face a credibility trap: Threats of further escalation must be balanced against the risk that carrying them out would deepen a conflict that domestic audiences may not support. Bluffing, which Trump is apt to do, only risks convincing the Iranians that U.S. red lines are not real.

The internal consequences for Iran are equally consequential, though harder to assess with confidence. The war has tilted the balance of power toward more hardline elements within the Iranian political system. Yet the system was never monolithic, and now it is even more chaotic: In the first round of talks, Pakistani mediators spent more time helping the Iranians negotiate among themselves than they did with the U.S.-Iran negotiations.

A plausible outcome is a return to an agreement resembling the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 U.S.-Iran agreement in which Iran accepted strict, verifiable limits on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief from the United States, the European Union, and other major powers, albeit with modifications. The United States is pushing for a 20-year enrichment freeze, while Iran is proposing single digits: a big difference, but also a bridgeable one. Such an arrangement would represent meaningful, if partial, progress. Still, it echoes the Obama deal that Trump vehemently criticized on the campaign trail and ultimately abrogated in his first term.

Iran’s internal divisions complicate negotiations, which are already proceeding only in fits and starts and likely to continue that way. Iran in the past was a difficult negotiating partner, and allies, including Israel, fear that the United States may handle the negotiations poorly due to its inexperienced negotiating team and president who regularly changes his position.

Divergences between U.S. and Israeli priorities further complicate both the conduct of the war and its potential resolution. While both countries share a core objective of constraining Iran’s nuclear program, their threat perceptions differ in important ways. For Israel, Iran’s capabilities—particularly its medium-range ballistic missiles and its proxy network, especially Hezbollah—are existential concerns. The sustained Iranian missile strikes during the war reinforce this perception. By contrast, the United States has placed greater emphasis on Iran’s regional military capabilities, including its naval forces, its ability to threaten the Strait of Hormuz, and its short-range missiles targeting Gulf partners.

An agreement that satisfies Washington by addressing maritime threats and nuclear constraints may fall short of Israel’s requirements if it leaves intact Iran’s missile arsenal and proxy networks. Conversely, efforts to fully dismantle those capabilities would likely require a level of escalation that Washington is unwilling to sustain or even support. The timing of domestic political calendars—both countries face elections in the fall—adds another layer of complexity. Leaders in both capitals will seek to present outcomes that can be framed as victories, but the political stakes are higher in Israel, where public sensitivity to Iranian threats is more acute.

The role of China introduces an additional strategic dimension. As a major purchaser of Iranian oil and a potential conduit for illicit trade, Beijing has the capacity to mitigate the economic pressure imposed by U.S. sanctions. China also allows the sale of commercial imagery to Iran and has provided chemicals that can be used for missile propellants. Beijing was also reported to be considering providing air defense systems to Iran, but Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth claims Beijing assured him these reports were false.

The United States faces difficult choices in responding to Chinese involvement, even if it is only to purchase Iranian oil. Interdicting Chinese-flagged vessels would risk escalation with a peer competitor. Even the threat of such actions carries significant implications for global trade and alliance relationships.

The United States must now reconcile maximalist aspirations with limited means and political constraints. The likely outcome is neither decisive victory nor clear defeat, but rather a negotiated settlement shaped as much by perceptions of resilience and resolve as by the balance of forces on the ground.

Looking beyond the immediate conflict, Iran has demonstrated that it can impose costs on global energy markets through limited disruption. Whether this takes the form of outright blockades, intermittent harassment, or even quasi-institutionalized “tolls” on Gulf shipping, the precedent is now established. If the United States does not develop the capability and the credibility to manage this threat, what is now a short-term, if painful, disruption will harden into a durable feature of the global energy system—raising the long-term costs of both the war and the peace that follows.

Daniel Byman is the director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is also a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.