Why Iran Cannot Fight a Forever War

Time  |  Hamidreza Azizi

The United States and Iran have resumed direct military conflict over the Strait of Hormuz, resulting in American missile strikes and Iranian retaliatory attacks against regional targets. This escalation threatens a fifth of the world's oil supply as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps enforces a toll on shipping and mines central transit routes.

The breakdown of a brief June 17 ceasefire, caused by conflicting interpretations of maritime sovereignty, triggered this renewed campaign of attrition. To bypass the contested waterway, Saudi Arabia redirected four million barrels of oil daily through the Red Sea, where Yemen's Houthis declared a secondary blockade at the Bab al-Mandab chokepoint. Meanwhile, Tehran's strikes on Kuwaiti utilities aim to deter Gulf states from hosting American forces. However, Iran faces severe domestic inflation exceeding 96 percent, alongside the risk of provoking a unified regional security coalition aligned with Israel. Neither side possesses a clear military path to a durable settlement.

Comment

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' targeted strikes on Kuwaiti desalination infrastructure demonstrate a calculated willingness to disrupt non-combatant Gulf Cooperation Council states. Rather than fracturing the regional security architecture, these aggressive actions are accelerating quiet intelligence-sharing integration under the framework of the Abraham Accords. This shift exposes a critical vulnerability in Tehran's regional strategy, as coercive maritime interdiction inadvertently consolidates a US-backed air and missile defence coalition. Consequently, the very escalation intended to expel Western influence is cementing a more formalised, Israel-aligned security bloc along Iran's southern maritime flank.

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