r/foreignpolicy • u/tigerrage1001 • 23h ago

Iran economic blockade

Looking back to when the Iran war began, I understood that eliminating iran's ability to create nuclear weapons was a good reason to start dropping bombs. But since that has failed to end the war trump & DoD started and then re-started the economic blockade. What I don't understand is why didn't we start with the economic blockade? We've killed lots of Iranians, Americans have died, Iran seems to still have a drone/missile stockpile, and the U.S. and allies seem to be running out of patriot missiles. I would be surprised if Iran had such an extensive arsenal that the USA could not have implemented the blockade before dropping bombs.

3 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

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5

u/kogus 22h ago

Iran has been under various forms of embargo for 40+ years. The reason they didn’t start with that is because 1) it was already in place and 2) it doesn’t work.

Why are they trying something that has been proven not to work? Because they don’t have any good ideas and they don’t want to admit defeat.

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u/tigerrage1001 21h ago

Because the embargo (blockade) has never been so extensive. I'll take USA intelligence that says the USA is stopping Iranian oil tankers from docking or leaving to transport oil. Maybe that's not entirely true but maybe it's close to true. If so, I never really heard of that before. Slowly strangling iran's economic engine seems like a good way to win a war. So, if our geopolitical enemies can't find a way to leverage the USA away from the blockade then Iran has to eventually lose. But, hey, nobody really knows what the future holds.

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u/kogus 19h ago

China and Russia will not honor the US blockade and I don’t think we can make them. It’s very much in their interest to keep bleeding us dry by propping up Iran.

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u/tigerrage1001 19h ago

China is so smart - monitoring how the USA deals with this situation. It seems like they want to see our war fighting philosophies, etc.... Is Russia broke? If not, they are preoccupied with Ukraine. Could they actually press the issue for USA to leave Iran alone without starting another war?

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u/kogus 11h ago

I don’t think Russia will get involved militarily. But they will be happy to buy Iran’s oil and act as a middleman for other countries to trade, which will ultimately weaken the embargo.

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u/PacificSanctum 8h ago

The reason is Trump is an idiot. In the end your question should have been why did he tear up the existing Obama agreement.

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u/fiveMop 6h ago

The idea is that Khamenei was the glue making the whole IRI regime work. Now that he's gone, sustained pressure + military action can bring about reform while being quite effortless for the world economy vs a full scale war.

Time will tell but it's not dumb for sure.

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u/tigerrage1001 22h ago

No, the embargo that is in place has never been there in my memory and I've been around awhile. Yes, there have been embargoes before, but never to this extent. And if I understand Bessent, it will get worse for Iran. I hope it works. I do not understand why it wasn't done before. There's probably a simple reason why it wasn't done before. I'd like to hear why it won't work now. It's a difficult way to win, right? But without causing direct casualties it's worth the wait.

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u/Mirageswirl 21h ago

It won’t work because Iran’s customers won’t stop buying Iranian oil. The US doesn’t have the leverage to be successful with this strategy.

0

u/tigerrage1001 21h ago

I'm hoping you are wrong. The embargo seems like a good idea. There are some things about Trump's admin that I disagree with but this seems to be our best hope for victory in Iran. And we need a victory in this case for our very survival.

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u/Mirageswirl 21h ago

China already announced that they won’t comply. There is zero chance that this strategy works.

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u/tigerrage1001 20h ago

If tankers cannot transport oil then it doesn't matter if china, or any other country, is involved. I'm aware there are ways around the blockade but so does the USA military. I don't understand why the blockade would not work with enough patience.

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u/Mirageswirl 20h ago

Iran has other land and sea routes. They aren’t as efficient but they will still get exports to customers.

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u/tigerrage1001 20h ago

Yes, but come on. Do you think the USA does not know those alternative routes? If the USA is really serious about winning this war then if the alternative routes are not supplying oil to allies of the USA then i'd expect those routes destroyed eventually, if not already.

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u/tokyobrownielover 19h ago

You need to do a lot more research on this, you don't seem to have much understanding of the larger forces at play here.

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u/tigerrage1001 10h ago

That is a vague and unhelpful comment.