With the 60-day U.S.-Iran negotiating period now expired and the two sides still far apart, the Strait of Hormuz remains at the center of the confrontation. Traffic through one of the world’s most important energy corridors remains a fraction of prewar levels, while Washington and Tehran continue to disagree fundamentally over the terms under which normal navigation would resume. The immediate dispute raises a larger strategic question: can Tehran use control over a critical international waterway to compel a change in American strategy?

It is naïve to assume that the Iranian regime will simply comply with American demands, beginning with the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. It is doubly naïve to expect Washington to accept Iran’s sweeping demands, which include an end to attacks against Iran and its regional allies, the lifting of the U.S. naval blockade and sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian assets, compensation for war damage, and the withdrawal of U.S. naval and air forces from around Iran.

The fundamental issue is not simply whether Washington and Tehran can reach an accommodation. It is whether the Iranian regime believes that coercion can compel the United States to alter its strategic objectives. Iran’s recent restructuring of its power structure suggests that Tehran is preparing for a prolonged confrontation rather than anticipating an imminent capitulation.

The appointment of hard-line security figures to key positions, together with the planned integration of the Armed Forces General Staff and the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, points toward a further consolidation of the regime’s military and security apparatus. The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters is responsible for joint and wartime operations, while the Armed Forces General Staff provides strategic guidance and military policy. Their consolidation appears intended to streamline command and decision-making during wartime. These developments suggest preparation for the possibility of renewed confrontation with the United States while simultaneously strengthening the regime’s capacity to contain potential unrest at home.

Iran’s Record of Coercion Against the U.S. and Gulf States

Within this context, it is equally important to challenge the repeated assertion by Iranian spokespeople that the Arab Gulf states are not Iran’s enemies and that the United States alone provoked the current conflict. That narrative is deeply misleading.

Since 1979, Iran and Iranian-backed militant networks have pursued a sustained strategy of confronting the United States, imposing costs on American interests and personnel, and ultimately seeking to drive Washington from the Middle East. The record is extensive: the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran; the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks and American Embassy in Beirut; the abduction and killing of CIA Beirut station chief William Francis Buckley; the assassination of American University of Beirut President Malcolm Kerr; the abduction and killing of U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins, a United Nations military observer serving with UNIFIL; the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing; and Iranian support, weapons and explosive technology provided to militants targeting American and coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This was not simply a collection of unrelated operations. As Mideast Journal has documented in its examination of how Iran built its regional proxy network, Tehran developed relationships with armed organizations across Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories that allowed it to project power, pressure adversaries and impose costs without relying exclusively on conventional Iranian forces. That model became one of the defining instruments of Iranian regional strategy.

The precise degree of Iranian involvement differed from case to case, but the broader strategic pattern is difficult to dispute. In the Khobar Towers case, for example, the U.S. Justice Department said that elements of the Iranian government “inspired, supported, and supervised” members of Saudi Hezbollah. U.S. government reporting also documented the IRGC Quds Force’s provision of weapons, training, funding and guidance to militant groups targeting coalition forces in Iraq, as well as assistance to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

These incidents should not be viewed simply as disconnected episodes. They formed part of a broader strategic pattern in which the Islamic Republic sought to impose costs on the United States, undermine its regional alliances, and eventually compel Washington to reduce or abandon its presence in the Middle East.

The same pattern applies to Iran’s relationship with the Arab Gulf states. Tehran has repeatedly treated its Gulf neighbors as strategic competitors and has employed or supported militant organizations capable of threatening their territory, civilian populations, and critical infrastructure.

A significant early example was the December 1983 bombing campaign in Kuwait, in which Iranian-backed Shiite operatives associated with the Dawa network carried out a series of coordinated attacks. The targets included Kuwait International Airport, the Raytheon Corporation, Kuwait’s oil infrastructure, the American and French Embassies, and a power station. Declassified U.S. intelligence subsequently documented extensive Iranian support for Dawa organizations operating in the Gulf.

The attack against Kuwait’s refining infrastructure was particularly serious. The perpetrators attempted to use a truck carrying roughly 200 gas cylinders to create a massive explosion. The attack failed to achieve its intended effect, narrowly avoiding what could have been a far greater catastrophe.

These historical precedents matter because they demonstrate that Iranian hostility toward the Gulf states is neither new nor merely rhetorical. Tehran has repeatedly sought to intimidate its neighbors, compel them to accommodate its regional strategy, and impose political and economic costs on governments it regards as obstacles to its ambitions.

That is coercion and intimidation, and when accompanied by attacks against civilians and critical infrastructure, it represents state-sponsored terrorism. The fiction that Iran does not regard the Arab Gulf states as adversaries—and that the United States alone bears responsibility for the present confrontation—cannot withstand historical scrutiny. The record speaks for itself.
 

The Strait of Hormuz Is the Strategic Test

In my frequent discussions of these issues on international media, one narrative has become increasingly common: that the Trump administration is acting recklessly, lacks a coherent strategy, or is simply losing the war. Such claims deserve scrutiny rather than repetition.

The central strategic question now is the Strait of Hormuz. The June memorandum envisioned the reopening of the waterway, but that has not occurred. Instead, Iran has tied reopening the Strait to an expanding list of political, military and economic demands, while insisting on a role in controlling maritime traffic. Normal commercial traffic remains severely restricted.

Iran’s leverage should not be confused with conventional military strength. As Mideast Journal recently argued in an analysis of alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz, geography gives Tehran strategic influence that survives even substantial military setbacks. Iran occupies the northern shore of a waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply normally passes. The Strait therefore gives Tehran an instrument of coercion disproportionate to its broader military and economic position.

If Iran continues to impose conditions on Washington and refuses to restore genuine freedom of navigation, the United States may ultimately conclude that reopening and securing the Strait by force is necessary. Such a decision would carry serious consequences, and those consequences must not be minimized. But they must also be weighed against the potentially greater strategic and regional costs of allowing Iran to establish a precedent whereby it can effectively hold the Gulf and international energy flows hostage to its political demands.

The issue, therefore, is larger than the immediate dispute between Washington and Tehran. It concerns whether a revolutionary regime can use control over a critical international waterway as an instrument of strategic coercion. If that precedent is established, the consequences would extend well beyond the current conflict.

Why Regime Change Is Not a Near-Term Strategy

Should the current American confrontation with Iran escalate, those calling for regime change must also be realistic about what such a policy would entail.

Washington should not formulate policy toward the Iranian regime on the assumption that it is a conventional state actor. It is a revolutionary regime whose determination to preserve its power and project its influence across the region has repeatedly taken precedence over the welfare and interests of the Iranian people.

But recognizing the nature of the Iranian regime does not make regime change a simple proposition. Absent a credible strategy for organizing a unified and capable Iranian opposition, combined with a clearly defined American strategy for what would follow the collapse of the Islamic Republic, calls for regime change risk becoming more a slogan than a strategy.

I served as project manager of the U.S. State Department-funded Iraq Research and Documentation Project, which was commissioned to develop a comprehensive socio-political profile of Iraq before the U.S. invasion. I reviewed thousands of Iraqi government documents and worked closely with several leaders of the Iraqi opposition. That experience taught me an important lesson: removing a regime and replacing it with a viable political order are two entirely different undertakings.

Regime change in Iran would be substantially more complex than regime change in Iraq. Iran is larger, more populous, geographically diverse, and possesses a far more complex political, ethnic, social, military, and ideological structure. The IRGC and the broader security apparatus are deeply embedded in the state and economy, while Iran’s opposition remains, as of today, politically fragmented.

For these reasons, I do not believe that the Iranian regime will simply collapse in the short term, even under sustained and severe economic and military pressure.

The Immediate U.S. Objective: Reopen the Strait of Hormuz

The immediate strategic priority should therefore be the reopening and securing of the Strait of Hormuz—not an indiscriminate campaign against civilian infrastructure inside Iran.

We will need the Iranian people as potential partners in the future. American policy should distinguish between the Iranian regime and the Iranian population and avoid creating conditions that could turn a future political constituency against the United States.

The experience of Iraq should serve as a warning. Before the invasion, some advocates confidently predicted that American forces would be “welcomed with flowers.” The reality was dramatically different. The United States encountered a determined insurgency, while much of the opposition it had supported proved incapable of translating political aspirations into an effective post-regime governing structure. The lesson is not that regime change is impossible. The lesson is that regime change without a viable strategy for what comes afterward is not a strategy at all.

Once the Strait is reopened, Washington should also make clear to its Arab Gulf and European allies that freedom of navigation through this international waterway cannot be treated as an exclusively American responsibility.

These states have direct strategic and economic interests in maintaining the free movement of commerce and energy through the Strait. They cannot indefinitely depend on American military power while leaving Washington to bear the principal risks and sacrifices involved in protecting international navigation. The United States should remain prepared to help safeguard freedom of navigation. But it should not be expected to shoulder that responsibility unilaterally.

The Gulf States Cannot Remain Bystanders

The Arab Gulf states should also understand that Iran’s confrontation with the United States does not leave them on the sidelines.

Whether or not they participate directly in military operations against the Iranian regime, they remain vulnerable to Iranian coercion. Iran’s new security chief has recently warned neighboring states against participating in additional U.S.-led economic pressure, underscoring precisely the kind of intimidation at the center of Tehran’s regional strategy.

The Gulf states have already confronted this dilemma directly. Their responses to Iran have ranged from deterrence to mediation and strategic hedging, reflecting different calculations about geography, economic exposure and relations with Washington.

Iran’s regional strategy has consistently sought to weaken American alliances, intimidate Gulf governments, expand Iranian influence, and challenge the existing regional order. The security of the Gulf states is therefore inseparable from the broader struggle over Iran’s regional ambitions.

The current standoff should consequently be understood not simply as an American-Iranian dispute, but as a contest over the future strategic order of the Gulf and the wider Middle East.

Iran wants to demonstrate that it can impose costs on the United States, constrain American freedom of action, intimidate its regional partners, and ultimately force Washington to reconsider its presence in the region. Washington must demonstrate the opposite: that coercion will not determine the strategic balance of the Middle East.

Further military confrontation with the Iranian regime may prove unavoidable. But its dynamics, objectives, limits, and ultimate outcome should not be determined by Iranian coercion, but by American strategic realism.

 
 Dr. Robert G. Rabil is a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University. His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of FAU.