Thanks to voters electing democrats - who are more than willing to shoot the United States in the crotch to spite Trump - the Iranians have some leverage now in the form of a democrat Congress that will do anything to make Trump look bad.

The Iranians have always had leverage. It's just that Hegseth and Trump didn't see it. They thought military superiority would achieve our goals, but that was a mistake. Iran always had a response to us trying to force them to agree to never have a nuclear weapon to any greater degree and in any greater way than they had previously agreed to. They could always drive up gas prices. The American people don't want higher gas prices, so they voted (in part) to get a different Congress. Not because the voters wanted to shoot the U.S. in the crotch to spite Trump or to make Trump look bad, but because they want the conflict to be over so that gas prices will fall again.

Trump, foolishly, did not take into account that the Iranians would attack energy infrastructure in the area as a potential response. He says that he took into account that any military attack would disrupt traffic in the Strait, but it's not clear that they formulated any response that could solve that reaction. Iran always had the leverage of forcing us to accept high gas and oil prices as the cost for trying to force them to make a different deal than they had before, and they've been exercising that leverage very adroitly. Hence, the "driver's seat" comment.

We always have the ability to maintain this status quo - inflicting significant harm on their economy, but not getting any closer to Iran agreeing to different terms than they were willing to agree to before the war. And Iran has the ability to maintain it as well. A dictatorial regime can last for a very long time while impoverishing its people (see North Korea, Cuba).