Sieges are by nature boring. There’s a lot of sitting and waiting, a fair bit of quiet action, and a good deal of bluster from the besieged party, but not much in the way of flashy explosions or major troop operations.
The siege of Iran is following that pattern. The blockade began in July, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury launched Operation Economic Fury (on August 24, my birthday; thank you, Secretary Bessent), which has been tightening ever since.
The result, at the end of October, is actually pretty dramatic.
What Iran saw as its big leverage, commerce through the Strait of Hormuz, has pretty much gone back to normal. Oil in particular is now moving as much as or more than before the war, through a combination of new routes and U.S. escorts.
The blockade and U.S. action have eliminated or nearly eliminated the remaining Iranian oil that was in transit. That cuts off Iran's last source of foreign exchange, while the Treasury's action by mid-October had cut off Iran's remaining access to foreign reserves. A lot of what remained was held through offshore banks in the U.A.E., and Iran strengthened that part of Economic Fury by angering the U.A.E. I think in soccer they call that an "own goal."
While some overland routes through Turkey, Pakistan, and Iraq still exist, they are very limited, orders of magnitude less than what Iran would normally need.
The result is that Iran is being choked off. Inflation is at least 70% to 90%, and the Iranian rial is essentially worthless, at 2.5 to 2.7 million rials to the U.S. dollar. This, combined with tightening controls on currency transfers, is hitting Iran’s economy even harder.
Related: Siege Warfare in the Modern Middle East, The Siege Is on. All That’s Left Is the Waiting.
Other signs have been showing up. The oil minister resigned in early October. The bazaars are nearly empty. Wages, pensions, and pay to the security forces are late at best, with reports that military personnel are taking second jobs just to buy food.
All combined, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has called the blockade and war the most intense pressure since the 1979 revolution. He said that the U.S. is trying to make daily life difficult for citizens to spark anti-government unrest. (No kidding?) He added that Iran needs to exit the “neither war nor peace” condition.
“Neither war nor peace” seems like a pretty good summary of a siege.
At the same time, Iran continues to insist on an end to the blockade and the return of its foreign exchange, and it refuses to consider any move to remove the enriched uranium it has produced.
In other words, Iran’s demand is that it be allowed to win.
Iran has made a number of threats and carried out limited kinetic attacks using mines and strikes on shipping, while threatening Gulf infrastructure. It has also threatened to attack undersea cables running through the Strait of Hormuz, and insists that Hormuz is still closed and will remain closed until the U.S. lifts the blockade.
This is the classic strategy for a besieged party: raise the cost to the besieger and bystanders rather than yield.
Related: Siege: Nothing Happens Until It All Happens
This remains a classic siege. It’s doing what sieges do, slowly wearing down resources and options, while waiting for something else to break the siege. Iran hopes the midterm elections will do the job; Trump says they won’t.
Nothing decisive has happened yet, but conditions for something decisive continue to accumulate.
