The Four-Month War: What's Actually Keeping the US and Iran Fighting in the Gulf?

My position is that Iran is plainly escalating too—its IRGC attacks on shipping and U.S.-aligned targets in Kuwait and Jordan are unlawful and strategically reckless—but the mechanism most responsible for preventing a ceasefire is Washington’s decision to convert a finite military exchange into a standing economic war. The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow sea passage between Iran and Oman that links the Persian Gulf to world markets; EIA describes it as the world’s most important oil chokepoint and says about one-fifth of global LNG trade also moves through it. When the U.S. blockades Iranian ports there, it is not a symbolic sanction; it is coercion applied at the throat of global energy trade. (eia.gov)

The first key fact is the blockade’s scope. CENTCOM’s April 12 notice said U.S. forces would block “all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports” beginning April 13. That is materially different from defending U.S. ships or escorting neutral commerce. A maritime blockade is a belligerent act that prevents vessels from entering or leaving enemy ports; under the law of naval warfare it must be tied to concrete military necessity and must not become disproportionate economic deprivation. Brookings’ war-powers analysis notes the Supreme Court’s Prize Cases treated blockade as an act of war, and that congressional authorization questions remain acute here. (centcom.mil)

Second, the tanker strike shows enforcement has crossed from interdiction into direct attack on commercial energy logistics. CENTCOM reported on June 2 that a U.S. aircraft fired a Hellfire missile into a tanker’s engine room to stop it reaching Iran, and that U.S. forces had disabled six commercial vessels and redirected 122 since the blockade began. That is not merely sanctions enforcement; it is kinetic force against commerce, predictably strengthening Iranian hardliners who argue that Washington will not honor any bargain short of Iranian submission. (centcom.mil)

Third, Washington’s conduct undercut the very peace instrument Trump says he wants. The June 17 Islamabad MOU required the U.S. to begin removing the naval blockade immediately and fully end it within 30 days, while Iran was to ensure safe commercial passage for 60 days. If the U.S. reimposes or kinetically enforces a blockade during that window, Tehran’s hardliners get a concrete pretext to void the deal even if their retaliation is unjustified. (presidency.ucsb.edu)

The beneficiaries are not mysterious. Defense primes and Gulf basing networks gain from prolonged deployments, missile defense consumption, escort operations, and replenishment orders; Forbes reported early in the war that Lockheed Martin, Raytheon/RTX, Palantir and others were among the most direct market beneficiaries. That does not prove a conspiracy, but it identifies structural incentives. The stakes are therefore constitutional, economic, and strategic: an undeclared blockade-war can outlive Trump’s rhetoric, raise global energy costs, and empower the most escalatory actors in both Washington and Tehran. (forbes.com)

Advocate B’s strongest point is the July sequence: Iran’s attacks on commercial vessels after the June 17 Islamabad MOU, including ships linked to Gulf states, gave Washington and the GCC a real security argument for renewed protection of navigation. I do not dispute that Iran’s IRGC conduct is independently escalatory or that Gulf states have legitimate reasons to condemn it. That matters because a ceasefire cannot be sustained if Tehran claims unilateral control over Hormuz or attacks Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar, or Saudi-linked shipping.

But that point does not defeat my position, because it addresses only the proximate justification for the July 14 reimposition, not the deeper mechanism that has made the war self-sustaining. The U.S. had already made blockade the central coercive instrument before the MOU: CENTCOM’s April 12 announcement applied to all maritime traffic entering or exiting Iranian ports, and CENTCOM later described repeated diversions, boardings, and disabling actions against commercial vessels. The July 16 AP report shows the same pattern continuing: U.S. forces fired on the Curacao-flagged oil tanker Belma near Kharg Island and AP explicitly described blockade pressure as an alternative means of forcing Iran to reopen the strait. That is economic compellence by naval force, not a narrow escort mission.

The legal point is also narrower than B suggests. UN Security Council Resolution 2817 condemned Iranian regional attacks, but condemnation is not the same as a specific authorization for the United States to impose a unilateral blockade on all vessels trading with Iranian ports. Under the War Powers Resolution, continued U.S. hostilities require a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization, or an attack-created emergency; section 1544 requires termination after 60 days absent congressional authorization or extension. AP reported on July 14 that Congress had voted more than ten times on war-powers resolutions but had not succeeded in halting the war. That institutional failure lets the executive continue a blockade-war without Congress affirmatively owning it.

The MOU further strengthens, rather than weakens, my case. It required the U.S. to begin removing the naval blockade immediately, fully end it within 30 days, issue oil-export waivers, and avoid new sanctions or additional deployments while Iran was to restore safe commercial passage. Iran’s violations justify pressure, but Washington’s answer—renewed blockade, force warnings, tanker strikes, and even a proposed 20% cargo toll—undermines the peace architecture by making commerce itself the battlefield.

Finally, B is right that Gulf states are not passive puppets; they host U.S. operations because they fear Iran. But those bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan also create operational sunk costs, host-nation dependencies, and procurement demand. Forbes identified Lockheed, RTX/Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop, L3Harris, General Atomics, and Palantir as direct beneficiaries of weapons use and replenishment. The structural incentive is not a conspiracy; it is inertia plus profit plus executive war powers. That is why Washington’s posture remains the primary ceasefire obstacle even while Tehran is also escalating.

B’s strongest argument is that Iran, especially the IRGC, did not merely respond to U.S. pressure: it attacked commercial vessels after the Islamabad MOU, claimed coercive authority over Hormuz routes and fees, and struck U.S.-aligned targets in Kuwait and Jordan. On that account, Gulf states are not pawns but threatened regional actors, and U.S. measures since early July are reactive efforts to restore navigation rather than independent escalation.

That is the strongest case against me, but it still does not identify the primary mechanism keeping the war going. The decisive distinction is between a defensible maritime security response and a coercive blockade-war. If Iran attacks ships, the U.S. can escort neutral traffic, strike launch sites under a narrow self-defense theory, negotiate monitored passage, or seek explicit congressional and Security Council authorization. Washington instead chose a blockade of “all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports,” according to CENTCOM’s April 12 announcement, and then resumed that model in July. That converts shipping itself into the battlefield and makes economic strangulation the central instrument of policy. (centcom.mil)

B’s chronology proves Iran gave Washington a plausible pretext; it does not prove Washington’s chosen response was legally necessary, proportionate, or ceasefire-compatible. The Islamabad MOU expressly required the United States to begin removing the naval blockade immediately and fully end it within 30 days, while Iran undertook to restore safe commercial passage. Iran’s violations matter, but the MOU’s architecture shows what both sides identified as the reciprocal de-escalatory trade: Iranian passage guarantees for U.S. blockade removal. Reinstating blockade enforcement and disabling tankers therefore attacks the core bargain rather than preserving it. (presidency.ucsb.edu)

Nor is War Powers a “technicality.” The War Powers Resolution requires termination of hostilities after 60 days absent declaration, specific authorization, statutory extension, or inability of Congress to meet. A four-month air-and-naval campaign involving blockade enforcement, tanker strikes, and regional basing is exactly the kind of sustained hostilities Congress is supposed to authorize or halt. When Congress fails to impose that choice, the executive can keep escalating while claiming each move is merely a response to the last Iranian provocation. (uscode.house.gov)

Finally, I accept that the IRGC benefits from confrontation; that is precisely why U.S. policy should avoid validating its narrative. A blockade and tanker strike help Iranian hardliners argue that compromise equals surrender to economic siege. On the U.S. side, prolonged deployments also generate predictable demand for munitions, missile defense, drones, ISR, logistics, and replacement platforms; Forbes identified major defense suppliers positioned to benefit from the war’s weapons use and replenishment cycle. This is not a conspiracy claim. It is an institutional-incentive claim: Iran’s hardliners can start crises, but Washington’s blockade posture is the scalable mechanism that prevents a ceasefire from becoming durable. (forbes.com)