The collapse of the negotiations between Iran’s “leadership” and the United States in Pakistan was as predictable as the Sun rising the East. And it did not take two weeks for it to happen. Why? Because Iran’s current leadership has not yet grasped that they must give up their quest for nuclear weapons. There is no country on the planet that would be happy to see Iran with a nuclear weapon.
To emphasize this point, considering all the years the debate over Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been raging, why haven’t its strongest allies, China and Russia, ever provided Iran with a nuclear weapon? It would be a simple thing to do.
Countries that are run by sane people understand that Islamic extremists, religious zealots, fanatics, cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons. Even those who are sympathetic to the Iranian regime, particularly Turkey and Qatar, are pragmatic about this issue. All of these countries understand that Iran’s hardline theocratic leadership wants to turn the whole world into an Islamic caliphate.
This theocratic leadership is just bats**t crazy enough and unstable enough to bring about the end of the world by using such a weapon. All of the regional players in this conflict have their own interests. However, when it comes to the issue of Iran having nuclear weapons, they all agree. Just as all of our Presidents have said publicly for the last forty years, Iran must NEVER have a nuclear weapon.
PDJT does not want to get involved in a ground war in Iran. However, Iran can never be allowed to continue their march toward nuclear weapons. All of the regional players, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, The UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan and yes, even Qatar, are willing to endure a considerable amount of economic pain and internal friction in order to get to the place where Iran stops its nuclear objective. Where does that leave us?
PDJT’s approach to this is a blockade of Iranian ports.
Sundance:
Oil and gas sales from Iran are under international sanction and not supposed to be taking place. However, oil and gas sales from Iran -violating the sanctions- have been taking place.
CENTCOM is announcing that the U.S. military will now ensure the oil and gas from Iran doesn’t move.
The U.S. will be physically enforcing a pre-existing set of global sanctions.
Some are calling this a blockade of the Straits of Hormuz. That is very misleading. Oil and gas from Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar will transit without issue. However, oil or gas from Iran will be blocked. The regime is going to be starved of its financial lifeline.
Add to this the fact that Dubai (UAE) has gone after Iranian money changers. Iran International reports:
The arrest of dozens of IRGC-linked money changers in the United Arab Emirates is one of the most serious blows yet to Tehran’s sanctions-evasion network, laying bare how heavily the Islamic Republic has depended on Dubai as an economic lifeline.
Sources familiar with the matter told Iran International that UAE authorities detained dozens of money changers tied to financial entities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, shut down associated companies and closed their offices.
The crackdown follows days of mounting regional tensions and comes after other measures targeting Iranian nationals, including visa revocations and tighter travel restrictions through Dubai.
For years, Dubai has served as Iran’s main offshore financial artery, where oil proceeds, petrochemical revenues and rial conversions were turned into dollars, dirhams and euros beyond the reach of the country’s battered domestic banking system.
“This is going to be a real problem for Tehran because Dubai was an economic lung for the Iranian regime,” Jason Brodsky of United Against Nuclear Iran told Iran International.
“That is economic pressure and diplomatic isolation in a way that the UAE is able to employ against the Iranian regime, and it will have a very considerable impact.” (more)
Iran may be just weeks away from a complete collapse of its economy.
Miad Maleki notes:
1/10 The U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would cost Iran approximately $276M/day in lost exports and disrupt $159M/day in imports, a combined economic damage of ~$435M/day, or $13B/month.
Over 90% of Iran’s $109.7B in annual trade transits the Persian Gulf. Oil/gas accounts for 80% of government export earnings and 23.7% of GDP. Kharg Island alone generates ~$53B/year, or as I noted to @TIME, “$78 billion a year in energy revenue.
2/10 CRUDE OIL: Iran was exporting ~1.5M barrels/day, earning $139M/day at wartime pricing (~$87/barrel), though with minimal proceed repatriation due to banking sanctions. A blockade zeroes this out overnight. Kharg Island, which handles 92% of crude exports, sits deep inside the Gulf with no viable alternative. That’s $139M/day, gone.
3/10 PETROCHEMICALS: Iran exported $19.7B in petrochemicals in 9 months of 2024/25, ~$54M/day. Virtually all of it ships through Assaluyeh, Imam Khomeini, and Shahid Rajaee, all inside the blockade zone. No overland route can move these volumes. Another $54M/day, gone.
4/10 NON-OIL EXPORTS: Iran’s non-oil trade hit $51.7B in 2025. After subtracting petrochemicals, ~$88M/day in goods (minerals, metals, etc.) flow through Persian Gulf ports. Roughly 90% would be blocked. That’s another ~$79M/day in lost revenue.
5/10 PORTS: Over 90% of Iran’s seaborne trade transits the Strait of Hormuz. Shahid Rajaee (Bandar Abbas) alone handles 53% of all cargo operations. Imam Khomeini handles 58% of basic goods imports. Bushehr ports moved 57M tons last year. All deep inside the Gulf.
6/10 ALTERNATIVES? Iran’s options outside the Strait are negligible. Jask, the much-touted bypass, operates at a fraction of its 1M bbl/day design capacity. Only 10 of 20 storage tanks were built. Effective throughput: ~70K bbl/day. Chabahar handles just 8.5M tons/year. The five Caspian ports combined handle 11M tons, versus 220M+ through the Gulf.
7/10 IMPORTS: Iran imported $58B in goods in 2025, ~$159M/day. A blockade chokes off industrial inputs, machinery, and consumer goods. Food inflation already hit 105% by February 2026. Rice prices are up 7x. This gets dramatically worse under blockade. Blockade will hopefully allow offloading of the humanitarian cargos.
8/10 Extremely important topic is the storage clock: Iran has ~50-55M barrels of total onshore oil storage, roughly 60% full. Spare capacity: ~20M barrels. With 1.5M bbl/day of surplus production that normally exports, storage fills in ~13 DAYS. After that, Iran must shut in wells.
Why is this very important: when mature oil wells shut down, bottom water rushes in, a process called water coning. Oil droplets get permanently trapped in rock pores. This oil can never be recovered. Iran’s fields already decline 5-8% annually. Forced shut-ins could permanently destroy 300,000-500,000 bbl/day of production capacity, that’s $9-15B/year in revenue, gone forever.
9/10 CURRENCY COLLAPSE ACCELERANT: The rial has already cratered from 42,000 to 1.5M per dollar. Banks are limiting withdrawals to $18-30/day. Overall inflation: 47.5%. A blockade eliminating all forex earnings pushes the rial into terminal hyperinflation. The regime issued its largest-ever banknote, 10M rials, worth about $7.
10/10 BOTTOM LINE: A naval blockade imposes ~$435M/day in combined economic damage. Storage fills in 13 days, forcing well shut-ins that cause permanent reservoir damage. The rial enters terminal collapse. Iran’s alternatives outside the Strait can replace less than 10% of Gulf throughput. The blockade makes continued resistance economically impossible.
All of this happening is due to the threat of Iranian possession of nuclear weapons. PDJT is trying to deal with this existential threat without irreparably harming the good people of Iran.