Six months into the conflict between the United States and Iran, the situation is not the humiliating quagmire that critics of the Trump administration insist upon. Instead, President Trump has charted a new and far more patient strategy that is making steady progress towards his objectives. The quick victory that some initially envisioned by destroying the regime’s military power has given way to a slow and consistent tightening of the noose aimed at denying the Iranian regime the economic oxygen it needs to survive.
Although the conflict is far from over, the evidence is that this new focus is working and will continue. The reflexive opposition of critics at home and abroad has not dissuaded the Trump administration. Instead, what we are witnessing is a grinding contest of attrition in which the pressure is compounding over time, steadily narrowing the Iranian regime’s resources and options.
To be clear, the Iranian regime has not yet reached its end, and it has demonstrated that it will not hesitate to slaughter unarmed men, women and even children for daring to peacefully protest against its decades of repression and failed policies. But even the most brutal of regimes cannot forever survive a crumbling economy and desperate population. Start with what the Trump administration’s critics refuse to t was counting on to make this war unwinnable for Washington is visibly slipping.
For most of the six-month conflict, Tehran has treated the Strait of Hormuz as a hostage, mining it, attacking tankers, forcing insurers to flee and shippers to reroute, in the belief that it could hold the global economy at gunpoint indefinitely. That leverage is eroding. Kpler data now show that Iran’s declared northern route accounts for only a minority of tanker traffic, with more than 80 percent of crossings classified as dark or unknown and some vessels using alternative routes, including the US-backed Omani southern corridor.
Iran’s own oil exports through the Strait have collapsed as a consequence of the US naval blockade, and Tehran can no longer reliably hope to collect the transit tolls it wants to sustain the regime. This is not a closed strait reopened by decree; it is a chokepoint being pried loose finger by finger, under US naval pressure, while Iran postures that it still commands a waterway it can no longer fully police. That distinction, between total victory and a steadily tightening vice, is the honest and still-impressive story of the last two months, and it is a story the Trump administration has failed to tell.
The more important test, the one this war was actually fought over, is Iran’s nuclear programme, and here the record is genuinely mixed, regardless of the Trump administration’s claims. The June 2025 strikes on Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, and the sustained pressure since, appear to have caused genuine damage: Iran’s main capacity to convert enriched uranium into the metallic form needed for weaponisation has been destroyed, while its centrifuge manufacturing base has been substantially degraded. That is not insignificant; in fact, it is the central military achievement of the entire campaign.
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