Iran’s relative success in the face of the war launched six months ago by the United States and Israel has demonstrated that a nuclear weapon may not be the most effective tool in the Islamic Republic’s arsenal after all.
While President Donald Trump’s administration entered into the conflict focused on a nuclear program that Iranian officials have always denied was geared toward producing a bomb—and, according to all accounts, never has—far more consequential throughout the course of the war has been Tehran’s wielding of leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, inflicting widespread turmoil on global energy trade.
The devastating effects have been felt far and wide, including in the U.S., where consumers are growing increasingly frustrated with the already unpopular intervention.
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And with Trump having called off yet another round of promised strikes he described as “the biggest attack since World War II,” Tehran’s stranglehold over one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints may ultimately prove a more potent weapon than the atomic ordnance the U.S. introduced to the battlefield for the first and only time in 1945.
“Iran’s ability to impose economic pain on the global economy is, in some ways, a more powerful weapon than a nuclear bomb,” Joshua Tallis, a former senior U.S. Navy official now serving as director of the Center for Naval Analyses’ Ally and Partner Security Affairs program, told Newsweek.
Cheap and Effective
Iran had long threatened to impose a Strait of Hormuz closure in the event of a full-scale military confrontation. The warnings date back to its 1980s war with Iraq, a conflict that proved formative for the Islamic Republic’s military doctrine, and gained traction once again as tensions mounted with the U.S. upon Trump’s withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal during his first term in 2018.
Now, that rhetoric has become reality, and the potentially permanent effects are only beginning to be felt.
Tehran’s gambit may not hold the same level of explicit military deterrence afforded to nuclear-armed powers, but even the long-held notion of nuclear weapons as a form of total immunity from attack has begun to wane. The U.S. has experienced this firsthand as it finds its Middle East bases under regular assault by Iran’s asymmetrical warfare, not unlike Russia, which faces daily attacks from Ukraine in the midst of the war launched by Moscow four and a half years ago.
Choking global trade through a crucial waterway right off its shores has emerged as a more feasible and potentially even more effective weapon for Tehran—most importantly, one it can actually use without incurring the kind of near-universal scrutiny associated with traditional weapons of mass destruction.
The result is a cost-effective, yet devastating campaign that is beginning to drain U.S. stockpiles of pricey, sophisticated munitions while reports indicate Iran is building back its own relatively cheaper capabilities more quickly than anticipated.
“With relatively few and inexpensive weapons, Iranian strikes on commercial shipping create a cascade effect throughout the global trading system as shipping lines, insurance companies, and seafarers reassess the risks of transiting,” Tallis said. “Because the collateral damage is modest and offshore, while the consequences are global and pronounced, Iran reaps substantial strategic gains at minimal reputational cost.”
“This makes Iran’s influence over Hormuz traffic more politically palatable to deploy than a nuclear weapon ever would be, and far harder for the U.S. to counter militarily or proportionally,” he added.
Leading the Conversation
Iran’s perception of success in its Strait of Hormuz tactics has also complicated U.S. efforts at the negotiating table. As the White House pivoted back to diplomacy, with Trump once again hinting at an “imminent” deal on Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei denied any plans to speak with the U.S. directly.
Rather, he confirmed that Iranian officials were in direct talks with representatives of Oman for “reaching an understanding over a path to ensure the security of shipping passage through the Strait of Hormuz.”
Oman, whose Musandam Peninsula exclave lies directly across the Strait of Hormuz from Iran’s southern coast, has emerged as a key player in efforts to find a settlement. The famously neutral Sultanate has proposed a “voluntary” fee system similar to arrangements established in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore Strait, through which countries would contribute to the Strait of Hormuz’s security and sustainability.
Whether or not such an agreement proceeds, Tallis noted that “Iran’s ability to pivot the nature of the war to one that is fundamentally about the future of Hormuz creates a serious reputational challenge for the U.S.”
That challenge is multiplied by the actions of one of Iran’s top Axis of Resistance allies, Yemen’s Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthi movement.
Even prior to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran launched in February, Ansar Allah demonstrated the effects of targeting maritime trade through a campaign primarily directed at shipping through the Red Sea in response to the Israel-Hamas war that first sparked the Middle East crisis in October 2023. The attacks brought shipping through the Suez Canal down by two-thirds, forcing vessels to take the far longer and costlier route circumventing South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
Ansar Allah weathered an intensified U.S.-led campaign of strikes to reach a ceasefire with Trump last May but only ceased attacks at sea when the White House oversaw an Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal last October. Last month, however, the group renewed strikes in the Red Sea, targeting Saudi vessels in response to what the rebels argued was Riyadh’s blockade of Yemen and strikes on Sanaa International Airport.
With Saudi Arabia and other U.S. partners in the region already questioning Washington’s security commitments, additional chaos and escalation in the absence of a deal may only further erode confidence.
“Until recently, the mere threat of U.S. military force served as a powerful instrument of deterrence,” Tehran-based security analyst Mostafa Najafi told Newsweek. “Recent developments, however, have weakened that perception.”
“Today, not only Iran but also many regional actors—and even some international powers—view the effectiveness of American military coercion differently,” Najafi said. “As a result, military threats no longer carry the same deterrent value they did in the past.”
Tough Talks
Arriving at a new agreement will not be easy. The collapse of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding reached in June has fueled greater mistrust on both sides.
The deal fell apart last month when Iran opened fire on tankers navigating the Strait of Hormuz via a route Tehran argued had not been authorized in line with the agreed-upon terms, sparking a new round of confrontation that lasted nearly two weeks. Both sides have accused one another of failing to meet the conditions.
If the conflict were to resume on a large scale, however, Iran continues to feel it has the upper hand.
“Should the current crisis evolve into a prolonged war of attrition, I do not believe time would necessarily favor the United States,” Najafi said. “The experience of America’s military engagements over the past two decades has demonstrated that Washington’s greatest vulnerability lies not in initiating wars, but in sustaining them.”
“Mounting economic costs, domestic political pressure, logistical challenges, operational fatigue, and growing concerns among regional partners would significantly constrain the United States’ ability to maintain a long-term military campaign,” he added. “By contrast, Iran’s strategic doctrine has consistently focused on gradually increasing the costs of the U.S. military presence in the region.”
Through “asymmetric and unconventional methods,” he explained that Iran’s goal would be to turn the tables on its superpower foe in ways even a nuclear weapon may not achieve.
“Having spent years identifying the vulnerabilities of the U.S. conventional military posture in the region,” Najafi said, “Tehran would likely seek to exploit those weaknesses through asymmetric strategies designed to raise the costs of the American presence, restrict its operational freedom, and ultimately facilitate the gradual—and eventually complete—withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Francis Mao and Gray R. Thomas
