Keep the Blockade of Iran in Place

New Iranian attacks in the Persian Gulf are being easily and successfully countered by U.S. Armed Forces. Those attacks should not obscure the fact that President Trump is pursuing a brilliant foreign policy with respect to Iran that he should absolutely stick to.

President Trump is succeeding where Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden all failed. The blockade of Iran will likely produce real regime change if it is left in place for another six to eight weeks, and the new Government of Iran will surrender its nuclear stockpile and will reopen the Strait of Hormuz unconditionally.

Iran is losing $500 million a day and 90% of its trade passing through the straight of Hormuz as a result of the blockade. No government can continue to govern and escape a revolution on the streets in this situation. Tellingly, no U.S. soldiers are dying, and President Trump is on track to win the United States’ biggest foreign policy victory since the peaceful collapse of the Warsaw Pact and of the Soviet Union, because of the policies of President Ronald Reagan.

President Trump has very wisely let two conditions shape his negotiations with Iran over the last two months. First, he has insisted that Iran surrender its stockpile of 60% enriched uranium and end its efforts to develop a nuclear bomb. Second, he has rebuffed Iranian demands that Iran be allowed to charge a toll on any ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Both demands are eminently reasonable. Yet the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is now the effective de facto government of Iran, is flatly rejecting both demands.

The IRGC is in a position of extreme weakness right now. It has been unable to pay its soldiers for weeks, and they are defecting in droves. The IRGC has filled all the storage tanks with oil, which it can store, and Iran may soon have to permanently shut down some oil wells, which will permanently damage them. Inflation is at record highs, especially for food; the currency has plunged to the point of being worthless; and even before the war, a super-majority of the Iranian public was furious with the regime. In six to eight weeks, the Iranian people will likely revolt in the streets, and the IRGC will have no troops to put down the popular uprising.

The result will be real regime change in Iran, one of the United States’ most dangerous enemies, with an end to the IRGC’s existence and to its funding of Hezbollah in Lebanon, of Hamas in the Gaza strip, and of the Houthis in Yemen. If we win the peace in Iran, the way President Truman won the peace after the end of World War II in Germany, Japan, and Italy, Iran will emerge as a potential U.S. ally, or at least as a likely peaceful regional partner.

This means that we will be able to end sanctions in Iran and help restore its full oil and gas production. That production, plus the resumption of oil and gas production in Venezuela, thanks again to President Trump, seems likely to cause oil prices to drop to about $40 a barrel, which will in turn likely bankrupt Vladimir Putin and end the Ukraine War on terms favorable to Ukraine. President Putin may even be overthrown as a result, eliminating another longtime U.S. enemy. The message sent to China not to invade Taiwan will be clear and unmistakable.

President Trump has the chance if he keeps the Iran blockade in place to emerge as the United States greatest foreign policy president since Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman. All that is required for this to happen is for him to have the patience to leave the U.S. blockade on Iran in place for another 6 to 8 weeks.