Six months on, Trump’s Iran strategy is starting to pay off

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.

What happened

Start with what the Trump administration's critics refuse to credit: Iran's grip on the one asset it was counting on to create 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. While Iran postures that it still commands a waterway it can no longer fully police, this is not a closed strait reopened by decree; it is a chokepoint being pried loose finger by finger, under US naval pressure. 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 bottom line

In short, six months on, Trump's Iran strategy is starting to pay off is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.