The United States maintains a naval blockade around Iranian ports after repeated ceasefire violations and the collapse of talks in Islamabad. President Donald Trump has delayed further action to strike at the right moment. If lasting results matter more than another temporary pause that lets Tehran recover and adapt, Washington must stop managing the symptoms of Iranian aggression and instead dismantle the foundations that sustain the regime’s power.
For decades, American policy has favored calibrated pressure over decisive action. Successive rounds of limited strikes, sanctions, and negotiations bought the regime time to rebuild its military capabilities and expand its nuclear program, thanks to Chinese oil purchases and other workarounds. Every diplomatic breathing space became an opportunity for recovery. The regime uses negotiations as a strategic cover while framing defiance as proof of messianic strength at home.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran possesses almost 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to 60% purity. Once further refined, that stockpile would be sufficient for roughly 10 nuclear weapons. Tehran no longer views this capability chiefly as bargaining leverage. It treats the material as regime insurance against “existential threats.”
TRUMP’S IRAN WAR IS PREVENTING A NORTH KOREA CRISIS
At the same time, Iran continues refurbishing missile and drone infrastructure and sustaining proxy forces in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. This is not a government preparing for compromise. It is one structured for long-term endurance.
Israeli operations in the region provide a relevant operational lesson. The reported use of two forward operating sites in western Iraq illustrated the advantages of persistent proximity inside contested space. Such positioning compresses response times, improves real-time intelligence collection, and reduces operational friction when confronting adversaries built around proxies and asymmetric warfare. Washington should draw on this approach.
Should renewed confrontation become necessary, the U.S. cannot content itself with symbolic strikes. It must target the central pillars of the regime’s power. The first priority is Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile near Isfahan. Much of this material now lies buried under rubble from earlier strikes. A multidomain campaign integrating intelligence, cyber operations, surveillance, and precision strikes could neutralize accessible portions while preventing reconstitution efforts. Preventing access to this stockpile would remove Tehran’s most immediate source of nuclear leverage.
The second pillar is financial revenue. Kharg Island handles roughly 90% of Iranian crude exports. Sustained degradation or seizing this export infrastructure, already under blockade pressure, would cut the revenue that funds the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxy alibi.
The third pillar is domestic energy and coercive control. The South Pars gas field supplies the large majority of Iran’s natural gas production and supports major sectors of the electrical grid and industrial economy. Targeted degradation of critical nodes would create systemic internal strain and reduce resources available for external force projection.
At the same time, intensified pressure along Kurdish and Baloch fault lines would force the regime to divert manpower and intelligence resources inward, stretching Guard command capacity and weakening its grip.
FIRST, THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ — WHAT CHOKE POINT COULD BE NEXT?
Together, these measures would strike at nuclear deterrence, export revenue, and instruments of internal control. A materially weakened Iran would shrink the operational reach of its proxies across the Middle East, strengthen security around the Strait of Hormuz, constrain its growing coordination with Russia and China, and seriously foster the conditions for the only and true solution to the Iranian threat: regime change.
The cycle of calibrated escalation followed by Iranian adaptation has not produced deterrence. Only a strategy focused on dismantling the regime’s foundations can permanently shift the balance of power instead of merely postponing the next crisis.
Jose Lev Alvarez is an American Israeli scholar specializing in Middle Eastern security policy. A multilingual veteran of the Israeli military special forces and the U.S. Army, he holds three master’s degrees and is completing a doctorate in intelligence and global security in the Washington area.