Compelling Iran can work only if the regime believes the United States can bring more force to bear.

Last month, Iran offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restart nuclear talks within a week if Washington lifts its naval blockade, waives sanctions on Iranian oil sales, and releases frozen assets. The offer is still open, according to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. However, President Donald Trump was, and is, right to refuse it. Asking to be paid to reopen a waterway Iran itself closed is not a concession; it is extortion dressed up as diplomacy. 

President Trump has reportedly told advisers he expects to resume bombing after the midterms. He should keep that option alive. A targeted campaign would work hand in hand with the economic squeeze: strikes destroy what Iran cannot afford to replace, while a collapsing currency and surging inflation, driven by the blockade and the Treasury’s Operation Economic Outcast, make every loss harder to absorb. 

The economic campaign is not a substitute for force; it is the prelude to it. Thomas Schelling, the game theorist who taught a generation of strategists how coercion works, argued that the power to hurt is bargaining power only while the pain is still to come. Pain already inflicted buys no further concessions; the threat of more intense pain does. The blockade is the pain Iran is already feeling; the force behind it is the pain still to come. Iran’s September offer sought to end the first before the second arrived. 

The administration has learned that the endgame cannot be a cosmetic ceasefire. The June memorandum of understanding gave Iran relief from the blockade in exchange for a pledge not to seek a nuclear weapon and to reopen the strait. It collapsed over its own vague wording, starting with who controls Hormuz. A new memorandum that reopens the waterway, releases frozen assets, and postpones nuclear verification would repeat the error. 

Only two outcomes are acceptable. The first is that Iran’s current leadership makes clear, swiftly and in deeds rather than promises, that it will accept the core American terms: no nuclear weapon, inspectors back in, Hormuz open without tribute, limits on its missiles, and an end to proxy support. The second is new leadership in Iran that abandons the Islamic Republic’s founding project of confrontation and revolution abroad, accepts the same terms, and proves it at once, starting with a fully open strait and nuclear inspections. 

The options, in rising order of risk: 

First, close the gaps in the economic campaign. That means secondary sanctions on Chinese banks, refiners, and ports still moving Iranian oil; tighter enforcement of the naval blockade; and full use of the Iran Sanctions Act, which Congress extended for five years last month, ending Iran’s hope that statutory sanctions will lapse. This underpins every other option and can continue alongside negotiations. 

Second, renew a sustained campaign of strikes on military, economic, and leadership targets. The air campaign that ran from February into April degraded Iran’s missiles and nuclear sites. Still, it largely spared the oil sector, ended before the target list was finished, and hit an economy the blockade had not yet reached. This round would differ in four ways. It would finish the work on missile units, launchers, and remaining nuclear-related sites. It would add the energy infrastructure and enterprises linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that fund the regime. It would target IRGC commanders who obstruct a deal, showing that resistance carries a personal price. It would hit an economy already buckling under the blockade and sanctions, where every loss is harder to replace. The aim is to show Iran that delay costs more than concession, without putting American troops on Iranian soil. 

Third, the highest-risk rung, begin a limited ground campaign. Sanctions and air strikes inflict pain, and Iran can endure it until the pressure lapses. Ground operations change the bargain. What Washington holds, whether territory, an export terminal, or the uranium itself, stays held until Iran meets the terms. These options go straight at the core goals: an open strait, an end to the nuclear threat, and a regime that learns resistance costs it what it cannot win back by waiting. 

Seizing Kharg Island, which handles roughly 90 percent of Iran’s crude exports, would put Iran’s main source of hard currency under American control. A blockade can be lifted in any deal; a terminal in American hands stays a lever until Washington decides otherwise. Iran could not resume large-scale exports without American consent, and Washington could release loadings in stages in exchange for compliance. Another option is seizing Abu Musa and/or the Tunbs islands (all claimed by the UAE), which would degrade the IRGC’s ability to harass shipping from forward bases. US forces would need to secure any islands seized against missile, drone, and small-boat attack.

The hardest operation, and the one directed at the nuclear threat itself, is reaching, accounting for, and potentially removing the buried highly enriched uranium. Doing so would likely require thousands of troops, the sustained suppression of Iran’s air defenses, and the ability to secure and extract material under fire. Each of these ground options carries significant risks: it would give the IRGC fixed targets for missile and drone attacks and demand additional logistics and air-defense capacity. The roughly 50,000 troops and 19 warships already in the region, with deployments extended into 2027, give Washington a foundation; these operations require additional assets.  

A parallel track should run alongside the ladder. Working with Israeli and other allied intelligence services, the United States should intensify covert pressure on political factions and the security services, exploiting divisions both within the regime and between the IRGC and the Artesh, Iran’s professional military. As the economic campaign deepens, those fissures are more likely to widen, creating openings to encourage defection, non-cooperation, or internal restraint—particularly among actors who conclude that continued resistance will cost them more than accommodation. 

The risks are real. Iran will continue striking US bases in the region and threaten shipping, Gulf energy infrastructure, and oil prices. Proxies can also inflict damage, as the Houthis have recently demonstrated. China can keep a financial and commercial lifeline open unless secondary sanctions force it to choose. A renewed campaign would also draw down munitions the United States prefers to reserve for other contingencies. Pressure on a regime under attack can consolidate it as readily as it splits it. These risks are reasons to sequence the pressure carefully—tightening the economic campaign and preparing the next sequence of kinetic options—not reasons to ease it. 

But the alternative is not stability; it is the same danger on a slower clock. A cosmetic ceasefire would give Iran’s revenues time to recover, leave its uranium unaccounted for, and confirm to its leaders, once again, that American resolve follows the political calendar. The blockade and sanctions have gutted Iran’s oil income, and earlier strikes set back its nuclear program. Another vague memorandum would let those gains erode. A focused follow-up on the uranium and the sites where Iran could rebuild would lock them in. 

Success is measurable: inspectors in, the uranium accounted for, the missiles limited, the strait open without tribute. Anything less is a pause. Iran has bet that it can outwait the American calendar. The blockade, and the force behind it, are how Washington makes Iran lose that bet.

About the Author: Ludovic Hood

Ludovic Hood is a senior fellow with Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East. His research focuses on US Middle East policy, Gulf regional security, Israel, the Arab states, Iran, and Lebanon. A foreign service officer for 20 years, Mr. Hood has deep expertise in Gulf regional security and US Middle East statecraft. He served at US embassies in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and France. In Washington, DC, he served as chief of staff and counselor to General Keith Kellogg, the special presidential envoy for Ukraine; senior adviser to Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism; special adviser for the Middle East to Vice President Mike Pence; and senior Lebanon desk officer.

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