Reuters : Iran is betting it can outlast Washington by turning the Middle East’s trade routes, shipping lanes and energy infrastructure into pressure points that steadily raise the cost of confrontation, according to Gulf officials and analysts.
Rather than seeking a decisive military victory, Tehran is pursuing a strategy of calibrated escalation aimed at widening the conflict without triggering full-scale war.The goal, they say, is to convince the United States and its allies that containing the crisis is more costly than accommodating Iran’s demands over the Strait of Hormuz.
The message from Tehran is that unless Washington accepts a new status quo that gives Iran a greater role in Hormuz, the conflict could spread beyond the Gulf.
By putting multiple maritime chokepoints and energy assets at risk, Iran believes it can strengthen its hand in any future negotiations.
“Iran, from the beginning, has tried to out-escalate the United States by stretching out its escalation options so that it always has something new to bring every week — a new geography, a new type of weapon, a new type of target,” Michael Knights of the Washington Institute told Reuters.
“The bigger advantage they have is not that they can hurt America or Israel,” Knights added. “Their big advantage is that they can hurt the regional states and the global economy.”
Having demonstrated its ability to disrupt traffic through Hormuz, through which about a fifth of global oil consumption flowed before the war, Tehran has signalled that no maritime chokepoint is off limits.
Threats to the Red Sea and Saudi energy infrastructure suggest a broader effort to raise the cost of protecting global commerce while testing Washington’s tolerance for disruption.
Iran’s approach reflects what one Gulf source described as a belief among Revolutionary Guards commanders that “they can get more”.
They see an opportunity in what they regard as President Donald Trump’s reluctance to become deeply entangled in another Middle East conflict ahead of November’s midterm elections.
