We have him "over a barrel"

Iran’s leaders still think Trump will blink first​



Iran has its own weapon pointed at the global economy, with its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran’s leaders say they will only reopen the key waterway for global energy if the blockade is lifted and the war ends.

They are betting that an economy built to be self-reliant under decades of international sanctions can endure the pain longer than U.S. President Donald Trump.

Iran can withstand the economic pain. The government has promised to increase unemployment insurance.

The U.S. blockade threatened to cut off export revenues: Iran sold some $98 billion in exports in 2025, just under half of it from oil.

But a complete blockade is difficult; around half of Iran’s non-oil trade goes overland or through Caspian Sea ports, according to Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, an economic expert.

Iran has also built up significant resilience and “readiness for worst-case scenarios,” Batmanghelidj wrote for the Bourse and Bazaar Foundation, a research group he heads on economic development in West and Central Asia.

Iran maintains large reserves of vital supplies. At the end of 2025, Iran had stored up enough electrical machinery for nearly eight months, cement to last nearly six months and enough steel and iron for four months, he wrote, adding that supplies could be further stretched by rationing.
 
Your title is so puny.

Relative time theology is being debunked, you really need to change your mind about the career character soul's you played so far. Understanding how genetic self evident evolving happens in plain sight is making a global second coming each brain's natural self awareness to be living equally timed apart since conception and no reasonable doubt telling everyone who they should be cradle to grave so ruling elites can tax natural timing of everyone alive cradle to grave daily here..
 

Gas prices jump 30 cents in a day amid Middle East tensions, US blockade​



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Iran Open to Talks, but Plans to Outlast U.S. Blockade​


  • Iranian leaders believe their resistance ideology, coupled with an ability to absorb economic and military setbacks, enables them to resist Trump’s pressure for an “unconditional surrender.”
  • Iran has more than 160 million barrels of oil afloat, awaiting delivery, which will earn Tehran oil revenue well into the summer, even if the U.S. blockade remains in place.
 
Only discuss the staged global events, not the root cause they happen by human intellectual design governed by relative time theology evey society uses 24/7.

You know that common sense everyone has over common since conceived to be alive coexisting in plain sight thing. Self evident time being one of a kind.

There is no we in my time adapting as me cradle to grave. There is common space existing in this atmosphere mutually evolving in series parallel time displaced one at a time now.

Time to correct repetitive human error as family traditions believing life exceeds personal time adapting as eternally different results occupying space each rotation here now.
 
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said:
Iran has its own weapon pointed at the global economy, with its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.
Click to expand...

Now if they only had a grip on reality. They don't control shit, Trump does, and currently he's interested in minimizing civilian casualties and leaving infrastructure intact for rebuilding after the mullahs get killed off by their IRG thugs. ME oil is already bypassing the Strait , so they can wait til hell freezes over for all we care.
 
Steinbeck said:
Now if they only had a grip on reality. They don't control shit, Trump does, and currently he's interested in minimizing civilian casualties and leaving infrastructure intact for rebuilding after the mullahs get killed off by their IRG thugs. ME oil is already bypassing the Strait , so they can wait til hell freezes over for all we care.
Click to expand...
Best laid plans by mice and men always end up as plausible deniability governing planned obsolescence in every society supporting the humanities building 7 artificial tomorrows factually than actual natural separation of ancestors evolving one at a time each rotation of the planet completed every 4 solar years.
 

EU’s Kallas warns of ‘dangerous precedent’ as navigation remains blocked 2 months into Iran war​


EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on Tuesday warned of a “dangerous precedent” amid the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, as it has been two months since the US-Israeli war with Iran started.

“Freedom of navigation must remain free or it will set dangerous precedents elsewhere in the world,” Kallas told reporters in Bandar Seri Begawan, capital of Brunei, where she attended the 25th EU-ASEAN ministerial meeting.

“Two months into the Iran war, diplomatic efforts have yet to produce a breakthrough,” Kallas said. “Higher energy prices hurt both Europe as well as Asia.”

Speaking to reporters alongside Brunei Foreign Minister Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, Kallas said: “In today's global landscape, none of our countries can afford to stand alone. What is happening in the Middle East makes this abundantly clear.”

On Feb. 28, the US and Israel launched a war on Iran, triggering Tehran's retaliation against US allies in the Gulf, and endangering maritime passage in the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for oil and gas shipments, disrupting global energy supplies.

More than 3,300 people were killed in Iran, and thousands displaced internally.

At least 13 US servicemen were also killed and dozens of others wounded in the armed conflict, which paused on April 8 when Pakistan secured a Washington-Tehran ceasefire.
 

'Iranians believe they have upper hand because they can endure double blockade better than US'​



Ali Vaez, Director of Iran Project & Senior Advisor at the International Crisis Group, examines the evolving strategic landscape between Iran and the US in the aftermath of the military and economic war.

From Tehran’s perspective, the balance of leverage has shifted. Iran believes it can better withstand prolonged pressure, while Washington faces mounting political and economic constraints at home and abroad. He argues that this asymmetry shapes both sides’ negotiating behavior.
 

Test of Wills: Iran’s Ability to Outlast the US Blockade​


The standoff in the Hormuz is not simply a question of whether Tehran can survive economic pressure, but whether Washington can sustain the pressure at an acceptable cost.

Economic blockades have long been used as a tool of coercion, deliberately positioned between diplomacy and war. From the British naval blockade of Germany in World War I, which helped weaken the German economic system over time, to the Soviet Berlin Blockade, which sought to force Western withdrawal by cutting off all land access to the city, blockades aim to compel political concessions by restricting access to critical supplies.

Even in the nuclear age, the US “quarantine” of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated how blockades can pressure adversaries without immediate escalation to full war.

In each case, the objective was not outright victory, but to reshape the opponent’s calculations under mounting economic strain.

The logic is straightforward: when military victory is out of reach, the fight shifts to controlling movement—who can trade, who can import, who can travel, and who can access the outside world.

Yet the unfolding confrontation between the United States and Iran marks a qualitative shift. This is not a peripheral blockade on a limited economy.

It is an attempt to exert pressure on entire continents whose economic lifelines run through one of the most critical arteries of the global system, the Strait of Hormuz.

To disrupt Hormuz, therefore, is not to tighten constraints at the margins but to press directly against the core of the global trade system.

And yet, to assume that such pressure will produce an Iranian collapse is to misunderstand both the structure of Iran’s economy and the logic of blockade warfare. The initial phase of a blockade is often deceptive. Iran has accumulated buffers over years of sanctions and strategic isolation: oil stored at sea, alternative payment channels, informal trade networks, and a state apparatus accustomed to crisis management.

In the months following the imposition of US-imposed maritime restrictions, these mechanisms can sustain a degree of continuity. Oil already in transit continues to generate revenue. Floating storage—tankers effectively parked offshore—acts as a reserve. Imports slow down, but do not immediately stop. The system bends but does not break.

For the US, maintaining a naval blockade over an extended period carries legal, political, and strategic constraints.

Iran's political system is not structured in a way that directly translates economic decline into political concessions. In fact, the state has developed mechanisms of control and adaptation that allow it to absorb significant levels of hardship. Rationing, price controls, and public security enforcement can stabilize the system.

More importantly, external pressure often reinforces internal cohesion.

Iranian officials do not frame the blockade as a technical dispute over shipping or sanctions, but as a declaration of war. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has described the maritime restrictions as an act of war and a violation of ceasefire conditions.

For his part, Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has linked any reopening of Hormuz to the lifting of the US blockade. Senior officials have emphasised unity—"one nation, one path"—rejecting external narratives of fragmentation. Perhaps most tellingly, Araghchi has characterised "the battlefield and diplomacy" as coordinated fronts in a single struggle. In this view, economic pressure is not separate from negotiation; it is a tool within it.

The implications of this strategy extend far beyond the bilateral confrontation. Energy markets react quickly to uncertainty. Prices rise. Insurance premiums increase. Shipping routes are reconsidered. Major consumers—particularly in Asia—face heightened vulnerability. China, as the largest importer of Gulf energy, has a direct stake.

These external pressures feed back into the US political calculus. A blockade that disrupts global markets risks further eroding international support for America and imposes unacceptable costs on US allies.

This brings into focus a critical but often overlooked dimension of blockade warfare: endurance is not one-sided. The effectiveness of a blockade depends not only on the target's ability to withstand pressure, but on the initiator's capacity to sustain it.

Domestic political timelines—including electoral considerations and congressional oversight—intersect with operational realities on the ground. Internationally, resistance from major powers and affected states can limit the scope and duration of enforcement.

In this sense, the confrontation over Hormuz is not simply a question of whether Iran can survive economic pressure, but whether the United States can sustain it at an acceptable cost.

The outcome won't be determined solely by the depth of economic damage inflicted on Iran or by the immediate success of naval operations in the Gulf. It will depend on the interplay between endurance and escalation, between internal resilience and external pressure.
 

Scott Galloway warns Trump's blockade could spiral into 'worldwide recession' — or something even worse​



“Let’s slow down and think about the second-order effects stemming from a world without freedom of navigation,” he writes. Trump's blockade has ripple effects on almost every consumer product, even those unrelated to oil. Galloway points to a looming helium shortage that has largely gone unnoticed.

About 200 helium containers, each valued at about $1 million, were reportedly stranded in the Gulf after Trump imposed his blockade. The containers are insulated but not refrigerated, so the helium can boil off within 35 to 48 days if it is not shipped.

“The concept of the blue highway is going away,” Salvatore R. Mercogliano, a maritime historian at Campbell University, told the Wall Street Journal. “We won’t see a return to the normalcy we had prior to this no matter what".

The Trump blockade threatens freedom of navigation; others will definitely try it.

Reza Khanzadeh of George Mason University told TRT World that Trump appears to be setting a precedent that allies could replicate in contested waterways such as the South China Sea.

TIME reported the U.S. blockade could also give China a legal argument to assert claims over the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. If the U.S. can bend transit rules, China could argue its own claims should override freedom of navigation too.

Galloway posits that the world can absorb higher prices and supply disruptions. The greater danger is a slide into what he calls “gangsterism,” where the rules‑based maritime order that has governed global trade since the 18th century gives way to strong‑arm tactics.

If other countries adopt the same model and impose their own blockades in places like the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, the Suez region or the Panama Canal, the consequences could ripple through the global economy.
 

What military options does the US have against Iran?​


Various options remain on the table, with renewed air strikes on Iran’s military and political leaders among them, Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed “person ‌familiar with administration dynamics” as saying.

Another source, however, said the most ambitious of those options – such as a ground invasion of Iran’s mainland – appears less likely than it did a few weeks ago.

An unidentified White House official described the domestic pressure on President Trump to wrap up the war as “enormous”.

Iran ‌has taken advantage of the ongoing ceasefire to rearm.

As a result, the tactical costs of resuming full-scale war are higher now than they were in the initial days of the ceasefire, which began on April 8.
 
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