Is Strangling Iran Going to Succeed?

On 23 August 2026, I was on “Switzerland” with Rose Kelanic and the host, Tom Switzer, talking about the likelihood that President Trump’s policy of delivering an “Economic D-Day” against Iran is likely to work. This policy has two dimensions: 1) a blockade of Iran, which has been in place since 14 July 2026, and 2) cutting off virtually all economic intercourse between Iran and other countries — isolating its economy — which is a new dimension that has surely been added because the blockade alone was not working well.

Both Rose, who is an expert on oil and coercion (see her book Black Gold and Blackmail: Oil and Great Power Politics) and I argued that the US is not going to succeed in its efforts to break Iran and get it to submit to Washington’s demands.

First, Iran faces an existential threat from the US and Israel, which incentivizes it to absorb huge amounts of pain before compromising, much less accepting defeat. Of course, Iran has already demonstrated that it can tolerate extreme pain of the sort the US and its allies dish out to countries on their hit list.

Second, the US threat to completely isolate the Iranian economy by punishing any country that continues to engage in economic intercourse with Tehran is not going to work. China, which is Iran’s largest trading partner, has already let it be known that it will not play along with the US. Nor will Russia or Pakistan break off economic relations with Tehran. The UAE has said that it will its cut economic ties with Iran, but Iran has made it clear that if it does so, Iran will use military force to make the UAE pay an awful price.

Third, as Iran’s threatened response to the UAE makes clear, in the unlikely event Trump’s policy begins to succeed and Iran begins to unravel, Tehran can respond by launching full-scale attacks on countries all across the region, which would not only threaten the survival of some of those countries, but would surely do egregious damage to the world economy.

Fourth, economic strangulation of the sort the Trump administration is pursuing takes time to work. But the US does not have time on its side. Not only is the world economy in a precarious state, but the midterm elections in the US are less than three months away. These two considerations, which are not unrelated, provide a powerful incentive to end the Iran war as soon as possible. In short, the US does not have the luxury of playing the long game, which is what its policy of economic strangulation demands.

There is no question that it is hard to imagine Trump surrendering to Iran’s demands. But what choice does he have at this point? The administration has made it clear that it has no military option, which is why it has turned to economic strangulation.