The US naval blockade has already been lifted, and Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz again, no disagreement there, but it won't have the same panic effect on the global economy next time. The US is preparing for that scenario as we speak. Lifting all sanctions on our oil is one of those preparations unfortunately.
Not to mention that shared control of the strait could earn Iran and Oman billions of US dollars each year and Iran will lose that if it gives up on this card.
I don't know about the Houthis of Yemen. Iran was being suffocated by the US naval blockade and the Houthis of Yemen talked loud about closing Bab El-Mandeb multiple times but did absolutely nothing in that regard. I don't think getting suffocated economically through a blockade was part of Iran's plan. So, I don't see how everything was going well for Iran when Iran could barely export 300K barrels of oil per day and was being choked.
Yeah, they're low on interceptors, but I am one of those skeptics that believe if push comes to shove, they will ramp up their production. The US has the industrial capacity to ramp up its production and they're already asking German factories and Europeans to help them too. This whole idea that Iran has exhausted the US and Israeli AD for the years to come is not completely true. It's not wrong either, because Iran has done that, but this whole idea that the US rates will stay the same is a wrong assumption that leads to miscalculation.
Honestly, excluding Qatar's LNG production, I do not see extensive economic damage in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Iran's infrastructure has been hit way worse than those "GCC" countries unfortunately. I expected the Emirates to be blown up to pieces at least, but even our damage to the Emirates is not significant enough to establish deterrence.
Also, there's this issue of mistrust within the system in Iran. If Iran is in talks with the US to secure its victory, then why is Ghalibaf refusing to reopen the parliament? Nearly everything in Iran has returned to normal after the MoU but the parliament of Iran hasn't had a session in months. Parliament members have too many questions regarding the negotiations but Ghalibaf simply refuses to discuss it with Iranian PMs.
I think you’ve moved off your original position quite a bit here.
Your original argument was that if Hormuz is reopened, Iran has lost one of its hard-earned cards. But now you’re explicitly saying Iran can still close the Strait again whenever it wants. If Iran can still re-close Hormuz, then it has not lost that card. What you’re arguing now is not that the card is gone, but that it may not have the same effect next time. That is a much weaker argument than the one you started with.
And even that is speculative. The US can prepare for a future closure all it wants, but that does not mean it has neutralized the leverage. The Strait of Hormuz still handles roughly 20% of global oil and energy flows. The US has not built some alternative route that can suddenly replace that. That would take years to implement, if not a decade or more. So yes, maybe the second closure causes slightly less shock than the first, but the strategic leverage is still there because the structural dependence is still there.
Your own point about shared control of the Strait earning Iran and Oman billions actually proves my point more than yours. It shows this is not some symbolic card. It is a major economic and geopolitical lever, whether Iran uses it commercially or coercively.
On the Houthis, I still think you are drawing too much from non-use. The fact that they did not fully activate Bab al-Mandab in this phase does not prove they are useless, nor does it prove Iran had lost control of the situation. It just means Iran did not play every escalation card at once. A country can be under pressure and still hold back some options for a wider confrontation later. Those two things are not contradictory.
Same with the missile point. You’re no longer really disputing that Israel and the US burned through a huge number of interceptors. You’re now saying they can ramp up production. Fine, maybe they can. But that still does not answer the key question, which is how long that takes, how much it costs, and whether they can replenish those systems faster and more cheaply than Iran can keep producing drones and ballistic missiles.
That asymmetry is the whole point. It is not enough to just say “the Americans will ramp up production” and leave it there. These are expensive systems, they take time to replenish, and Iran does not need to match them interceptor for interceptor. It just needs to keep imposing costs faster than they can comfortably absorb them.
And on the GCC, I think you’re using the wrong benchmark again. The point was never that the UAE had to be “blown up to pieces” for the missiles to matter. The point is that the war reminded the Gulf states that they are still exposed to Iranian retaliation and to the fallout of a US-Israel war with Iran. That by itself is enough to make them reassess how much they can rely on Washington and how much hedging they may need to do with Tehran. You do not need Dubai or Abu Dhabi to look like Gaza for that strategic effect to exist.
So I still come back to the same basic point: even if the US gets concessions on HEU, that alone does not turn the overall outcome into a US victory if Iran still keeps its missile force, still keeps the ability to threaten Hormuz, still retains regional escalation options, and comes out of this with sanctions relief and economic breathing room. In that scenario, the US may have won something important on the nuclear file, but it still has not resolved the broader Iranian challenge. That is why I still see the overall package as leaning more in Iran’s favour than America’s.
