No. of Recommendations: 9
Since then every opponent of the United States has adopted the same playbook.
It's the playbook for every opponent that's on the "weak" side of asymmetric warfare. From driving the Brits out of Ireland to fighting the Russians in Afghanistan to, well, fighting the Russians also in Ukraine. And, of course, the Americans in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan. The invading forces can always decide it isn't worth it and just go home, while the domestic forces have nowhere to go but fight to the bitter end. If the domestic forces can make it painful enough to the invading forces to keep fighting, then they can exercise the choice to leave and just leave - but it's harder for the invading force to get the domestic forces to give up, because they have no option but to keep fighting.
Of course Iran's going to try to turn this into a drawn-out, resource-consuming grind that causes as much pain as possible to the global economy. It's why hoping that something like a blockade might change that dynamic is....well, it sure is optimistic. Sure, they'd rather not have to turn off their oil wells. It's time consuming and costly to restart them, and there's the possibility of significant long-term damage (Iran's had to curtail production at some of their wells in the past at times of peak sanction, and were able to restart them without much difficulty, but the possibility remains). But the same is true of all our other allies in the Gulf, which might partially explain some of UAE's frustration boiling over. And given the choice between taking damage to the oil reservoirs and yielding to the U.S., Iran might still just choose to take the hit and resist.
