What leverage does US actually have here? Even Israel for that matter?

The only options left for US are large scale bombing, like in Vietnam or Cambodia OR putting soldiers on the ground. Going on for years. Or drop a nuke.

Bombing will be of limited use and extremely costly, because is Iran is too large. Its a geographical fortress, mostly large mountain ranges, or deserts.

Soldiers on the ground means a large scale logistics setup, bases, buildup, etc. Its costly and deadly. US soldiers will start dying from day 1.

And then, Iran has total control over the strait. It can decimate the livable conditions in the GCC countries. Mind you, Iran gets about 5% of its water from desalination plants. Almost all GCC countries get more than 50%, sometimes upto 85% of their water from desalination plants. Couple that with hits on their power infra, and the population will be left thirsty in the middle of the desert. None of them can survive without their Air conditioners and water supply. With those countries dying out, Iran emerges as the super power in the region.

> What leverage does US actually have here? Even Israel for that matter?

Arguably, in a continous war setting Iran eventually runs out of money to pay its soldiers or build new misiles. Especially if their oil facilities are bombed.

I dont think iran can physically keep this up long term. The counter balance to that is usa cannot keep this up politically even in the short term.

To figure out the leverage just imagine 50 fighter jets over your head each with 6 heavy bombs where their goal is to blow you up. Now argue that those controlling those jets have no leverage.

Bombing has limits but can also do a lot of damage. It's true not every single IRGC member or leader can be bombed out of existence. But many can. It's also true that some infrastucture is buried. But a lot isn't. Specifically all the energy infrastructure that accounts for half of the country's revenue and about 25% of GDP is easily bombed.

There is leverage. That said your leverage over someone who is willing to die and not give anything up is always somewhat limited.

Iran also has leverage due to its control of the Strait of Hormuz and its remaining ability to fire missiles and drones across the region.

The GCC and their allies has no problem flying drinking water in if that's really needed. But it's true that Iran can hurt them some more. They are sitting on some extraordinarily large cash reserves and other investments so they may be willing to take some pain. Supposedly some of them were asking the US to keep attacking Iran. Also keep in mind none of these countries have actively joined the war yet and that may change if Iran keeps attacking. They have small but very well equipped armies.

The US was banking on a revolution, which hasn't yet materialized.

A near term power vacuum and civil war might not be unlikely right now. This war started (on purpose) when Iran was the furthest thing from "united".

I think dropping a nuke is not out of question. We just have to watch the language of the U.S administration over the next weeks.

The US holds more leverage than you may expect. First, the US can/will reopen Hormuz by force without a sustained ground occupation. Here's the former CENTCOM commander in April 2026:

> GEN. MCKENZIE: Well, let me, let me say, first of all, we do have the ability to open the strait. Should we choose to do it in what you're seeing now are the- what I would call the precursor of the initial steps in such a campaign you want to reduce Iran's ability to fire short range rockets and missiles into the strait against warships. You want to take out their fast attack craft. Think of them as cigarette boats, large, powerful outboard engined boats that can race out and get among ships and cause direct damage that way. What we're doing is we're going after all those vessels. And that's where a 10s attack aircraft, attack helicopters and other slow moving, low altitude platforms are so very effective. So we're in the process of removing those right now. At the same time, we're working to get rid of Iran's mine stockpile. The mines are very dangerous. They had thousands when the war began. I have no doubt we significantly (UNINTELLIGIBLE) them, now. Of course, it doesn't take many mines to cause a significant blockage to world shipping. So all of that is underway right now, and you want to reduce those to a low level before you put your warships up there to actually sort of test the waters in that strait. I have no idea what Admiral Cooper's decision making process is going to be for that, but I think we're well on the way to achieving those goals.

Here's Admiral Cooper in 2025:

> "Senator Peters: So what is your assessment? How quickly could the U.S. and allied naval forces secure freedom of navigation if commercial shipping is indeed attacked in the straits?

> Admiral Cooper: Senator, the specifics of this are highly classified. But historically, in mine warfare, nothing happens quickly. I think we would think of this in terms of weeks and months, not days."

To an outside observer, it looks like nothing is happening. But what we currently see is a large concentration of fires around the coast, A-10s and Apaches, lots of reaper drones for ISR, attriting the USVs, anti-ship missiles, mines and mine-laying vessels. According to the former CENTCOM commander, you don't need to occupy this land to reopen Hormuz, at most you need fires and short raids. Only after this shaping process can the US Navy run escorts through the shallow and narrow littoral safely. It's a gradual process, a plan that multiple former commanders have commented on publicly going back decades, and this is what the first steps look like. And unlike public perception that the strait needs to be 100% safe beyond any doubt before commercial shipping resumes, the precedent during Operation Praying Mantis proves otherwise. The situation in the Red Sea is somewhat different only because there's an alternative route.

Secondly, the assumption that GCC are deterred is not right. The GCC desire escalation, see for example:

https://apnews.com/article/trump-iran-saudi-arabia-mbs-gulf-...

> Gulf allies of the United States, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are urging President Donald Trump to continue prosecuting the war against Iran, arguing that Tehran hasn’t been weakened enough by the monthlong U.S.-led bombing campaign, according to U.S., Gulf and Israeli officials.

This is despite the threats to their critical infrastructure. To know why they want this, you need to understand the regional history in some detail. It can be summarized like so:

- UAE has a territorial dispute with Iran and stands to gain sovereignty over a number of islands in Hormuz.

- Saudi Arabia stands to gain control over Yemen and therefore over Bab al-Mandab if support for the Houthis is cut off.

- Saudi Arabia has a history going back over 10 years of asking the US to bomb Iran despite threats to their infrastructure, such as in 2015, and in 2019 when Soleimani organized attacks on Saudi oil and gas infrastructure.

- Iran is a competing imperial power and wants to obtain suzerainty over Arab states through satellites, to export the revolution. This is why Saddam invaded Iran in the 1980s. The fear among Iran's Arab neighbors is still there, and they won't accept the US just declaring victory and walking away. It's hard for people outside of the region to understand this because the facts that create this perception don't enter the news cycle in the West.

Even though the cost to the GCC is incredibly large, Iran does not have escalation dominance in this situation, because the political will among the GCC is commensurately larger.

The third aspect here is that Iran's defense industrial base is gone, which means their current stockpiles are all they have. Various estimates have been thrown around about their remaining missile stockpile from experts: "1/3 left", "30% left", "over 1000 left". But the common denominator is that they cannot sustain the current tempo (~1200 missiles/month) forever. This is not like the Ukraine war (or most other wars) where both sides have an active industrial base pumping out material to replace the lost material. This puts a hard ceiling on what Iran can achieve against the Gulf states, certainly below total destruction of all their critical facilities. If this wasn't true, the Gulf states wouldn't be pushing the US to escalate.

The fourth aspect is that Iran still has much to lose, and the US can easily deliver those losses to Iran. Their oil exports are the most obvious next step, 10% of their economy can be temporarily removed with a naval blockade of Kharg or equivalent reversible means, which is revenue they use to pay IRGC wages and stave off civil unrest like what we saw last year.

Finally, as committed as the IRGC is (or as committed as they portray themselves to be through a concerted information warfare campaign via their centrally controlled media), there is historical precedent of hardline regimes "surrendering" when faced with a belligerent that has the combination of political will and capabilities. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Khomeini's "drinking from the poisoned chalice" in the 1980s, the one-sided ceasefire agreement that Hezbollah agreed to in 2024, the Japanese surrender in WW2. If the IRGC feels it needs to commit to zero enrichment to preserve the revolution, they probably will.

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