LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

Over the weekend, United States Central Command claim to have destroyed drones or rockets carrying mines (or perhaps trash bags or beachballs) in order to effect some kind of closure of Hormuz, or at least the spooking of energy traders.  In retaliation, the mullahs flipped some flying gas mains toward United States bases in Jordan, apparently without effect.  We'll see what Our President orders up.

Stay the course, apply the pressure.

[We} know that we have great leverage over the conditions that can influence [regime leaders'] decisions.

The first of these is our military prowess amply demonstrated in Operation Epic Fury in the spring and in the Straits of Hormuz now. The second is the economic stranglehold which has been greatly enhanced in recent days.

We also know that the Iranian people are suffering. Their economy is staggering and the rial has become virtually worthless. Everywhere (save for the political elites) deprivation is worsening.

Containing the internal unrest that might otherwise rear up has been a major concern of the fanatical IRGC leadership. So far, they have repressed it after a short but bloody uprising in the spring, but have the seeds of that rebellion gone away? Only time will tell.

We need to take that time, using the threat (and actual use) of military power when necessary and the application of severe economic sanctions to continually increase the pressure on Iran and its leaders. Now is not the time to seek an ‘exit ramp’ and surrender the goals with which we entered this conflict. Iran’s efforts to become a nuclear armed nation cannot be allowed to continue. Its endless terrorism by its regional and worldwide operatives must be dismembered.

The arguments to cease and desist using the levers we have at hand — many of them motivated by short term political objectives — are not the way ahead. Patience, strength, and calibration are what is needed.

Brett McGurk speculates that the mullahs could offer Our President two-thirds of his wish list.

Their way out is to stop threatening ships in the Strait and abandon what's left of its mostly destroyed enrichment program. That's a deal Trump would accept. Doing either, however, from the vantage point of the Guards would show weakness and threaten their rule.

Israel might not see things that way, as an end to Iranian funding of gangbangers who call themselves jihadis likely remains a desirable outcome.  On the other hand, those gangbangers might all be operating inside Iran to keep the current tyrants in charge.

Tehran may seek to fight its way out of this noose. Its strategy through the first three acts was clear: threaten commerce in the Strait, raise energy prices globally and gasoline prices in the US, increase global economic pressure and ultimately force Trump to back down, particularly with midterm elections approaching.

Iran has also targeted the energy infrastructure of the Gulf states and could do so again. Its proxy force in Yemen, the Houthis, have threatened to shut down commerce through the Red Sea with Iranian missiles and drones.

All that would mean resorting to the same tactics from the early acts of the war. Strategically, it has not worked for Iran. The Gulf states are not happy with the war, but most do not support giving in to Iran's extortionist demands in the Strait. Iran's attempts to close the Strait with drones and mines are also now — for the first time — failing.

The next few weeks might prove instructive.

The pressure on Iran is already extraordinary. The rial traded at 2.02 million to the dollar on Sunday, down from 1.53 million in March, a 32 percent depreciation in under six months. Inflation is running near 90 percent by the Iranian government’s own Statistical Center, and the International Monetary Fund expects the economy to contract 5.4 percent this year.

Oil exports have stopped almost entirely: central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati has conceded that “we are not exporting oil,” tanker trackers have logged no Iranian supertanker crossing the Strait of Hormuz since July and floating storage has drained from 105 million barrels to fewer than 40 million.

The rest of the ledger is no better. Iranians are living with rolling blackouts and water rationing. Hezbollah is degraded, Hamas is gone, Assad has fallen, and the nuclear program is buried.

The supreme leader was killed in February and replaced by his son, a succession that satisfies no faction inside the system and commands no loyalty outside it. Four decades of regional adventurism and economic mismanagement have left the Islamic Republic weaker than at any point since 1979.

Tellingly, Trita Parsi with the Obama holdovers at Quincy contemplates a worst-case scenario that might not turn out well for the mullahs or their cheering sections in government and the opinion world.

the most likely scenario is neither immediate escalation nor a post-midterm return to talks. Rather, in this scenario the Trump administration’s newfound confidence proves warranted: the combination of new sanctions and growing traffic through the southern corridor of the Strait has created a new reality in which Iran is hurting more than the U.S., and its trajectory is becoming increasingly — but not dramatically — negative. Iran will therefore be weaker in a few months, and in a less favorable diplomatic and military position.

While this will incentivize Iran to counter-escalate, Tehran may choose to delay its response and wait for a more opportune moment. If Washington wants to keep things quiet until the midterms, Tehran may conclude that the optimal moment to strike back is two or three weeks before the Congressional elections, maximizing the political damage to Trump.

But Iran may not limit its response to tankers in the Strait. Iranian officials say, both publicly and privately, that they expect the U.S. and Israel to resume the war after the midterms regardless of the impact of the D-Day sanctions. Regional diplomats have largely reached the same conclusion. If sanctions weaken Iran over time while the global economy recovers and adjusts to the new reality in the Strait, a prolonged pause will work against Tehran. Iran may therefore decide to escalate dramatically, taking full advantage of Trump’s perceived vulnerability in the run-up to the elections.

What's the over-under on whether Iran gets clobbered harder in the event the Democrats take at least one house of Congress?

Let the thing be pressed.