LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

Stephen "Vodka Pundit" Green is not yet urging "Faster, please."  Historian Scott Powell suggests the time to finish the mullahs is now.

Iran is already a militarily defeated nation. To allow this evil, suicidal regime to rebuild and reconstitute itself would be a tragic missed opportunity to liberate the vast majority of Iranian people who want to live as free people under some form of democracy. And fundamentally, it would be a dereliction of duty to the greater Middle East. Defeating this regime also puts the nail in the coffin for Hamas, Hezb’allah and the Houthis, all of which dramatically improves the prospects for peace in the region.

A lot can change in a few days.  Last week came the usual sort of posturing.  "Tehran has vowed not to reopen the critical shipping lane “until America corrects its behavior,” despite a looming agreement with Oman reported to have been close for days."  As well as the usual scavenger hunt in the arsenal.

Iran's regime fired two ballistic missiles toward shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates has had enough. Abu Dhabi responded by severing every trade, commercial, and financial transaction with the terror state, effective immediately.

Roughly $28 billion in annual commerce is now gone. The UAE was Iran's single largest source of imports, a lifeline the mullahs just torched with their own missiles.

UAE Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Afra Al Hameli made it official Wednesday. No end date. No conditions. Just a hard stop tied to Iran's escalating aggression.

“All trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice.”

It helps if you have ordnance that works if you seek concessions.  Dud missiles scratchbuilt with whatever the mullahs scraped together might even have changed minds at CNN.  "Iran has lost significant control of the Strait of Hormuz."

That's not the same thing as the Arabian Gulf becoming Mar-a-Lago East Lagoon, but if you can't get your own product out, and the people who you're trying to prevent from getting product out are getting product out, your control is so many loud words (as it is so often with the men of Asia Minor.)

The United States, patrolling the strait with its navy, is gaining ground – and Iran is losing much of its control of the critical waterway.

More than 80% of liquids transits through the Strait of Hormuz over the past two weeks have taken the Omani route – a UN-authorized shipping channel that Iran vehemently opposes – or have been “dark” transits that likely took the Omani route, according to Kpler, which tracks ships using transponders and satellite data.

Iran, declaring the strait under its control, has attacked dozens of ships that tried to travel the waterway via the north coast of Oman. Despite the risk, most ships have recently chosen to ignore Iran’s demands and cross the strait with the promise of protection from US naval forces.

“It increasingly looks like Iran has at least partially lost control of the strait,” said Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler.

I wonder if somewhere there's a mullah lamenting, "We've even lost CNN," in the manner of Lyndon Johnson allegedly lamenting CBS News coverage of his Vietnam campaign.  The parallel might be in what effect changing CNN coverage might have on United States public opinion.  The best CNN can do is hint that gasoline prices aren't as high as the doomsayers feared.  "But the United States, with significant military force on the water, has eyes on all ships passing through the strait and has reported significantly higher oil shipping numbers than most traditional estimates had previously suggested."

Or perhaps the mullahs are lamenting what their enablers in the Jarrett regency are now saying.

Iran’s oil exports have dropped to nearly zero under the renewed US naval blockade, according to analysis from a former senior US Treasury official — who predicts that the economic impacts could hit the elite and destabilize the regime within two to three months.

Iran’s ability to ship oil out of the Strait of Hormuz to offset its current economic woes has hit a wall under the new blockade, with little to no activity seen at its Kharg Island hub, according to recent satellite images.

As Iran and the US attempt to use economic pressures to see who will blink first, Miad Maleki, who served in the Treasury under President Trump and Joe Biden, said Tehran’s regime will finally run out of room to maneuver this fall.

“The blockade has exposed Iran’s biggest economic vulnerability,” said Maleki, who now works at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.

“Iran’s oil clock is running down and the real fiscal shock is going to hit in the fall when all their payments come due,” he added.

Iran notably pays its troops, government employees, security forces and industrial workers in cycles, with about 60% of the money coming from its oil exports, Maleki said.

If its exports continue to be hamstrung in the next cycle, the regime will have few options to shield its soldiers and elites from the economic shock.

Perhaps J. J. Carafano has correctly diagnosed the correlation of forces. "Donald Trump Already Won the Iran War. Ending It Is Tehran’s Problem Now."  Somewhere Gideon Welles nods approval.

Trump has basically said, “Okay, you get to decide when the war ends. When you are serious about just accepting defeat, call me.” In the meanwhile, the Iranian regime can continue to suffer all the uncomfortable results of a protracted struggle with America and its allies, debilitating punishment that has demolished Iran’s threat as the bully-in-chief of the region.

Further, Trump has switched it up, declaring that for now he is just going to sit back and tighten the anaconda-noose of economic pressure, tightening sanctions and the maritime blockade crippling Iran’s oil exports.

Strategic patience continues to have its merits.  "Trump has two and a half years to watch Iranians play stupid games."  Let's see what no more trans-shipments from Dubai brings.