{"id":5395,"date":"2026-07-21T05:33:43","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5395"},"modified":"2026-07-21T05:33:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:33:43","slug":"us-and-iran-dig-in-over-the-strait-of-hormuz-showing-the-limits-of-intensifying-airstrikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5395","title":{"rendered":"US and Iran dig in over the Strait of Hormuz, showing the limits of intensifying airstrikes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The U.S. and Iran are back to bombing every day in a bid to control the Strait of Hormuz. And neither is backing down, showing the limitations of President Donald Trump\u2019s reliance on escalating airstrikes to bend Tehran to his will.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Arizona Republicans pick nominees Tuesday for governor and other top offices<\/a><\/p>\n

While the Trump administration says it is open to diplomacy, Iran so far has refused to loosen its grip over the crucial oil shipping corridor in the Persian Gulf. It is raising questions about the strategy for the next phase of the conflict as intensifying attacks have collapsed an interim ceasefire deal, left additional American troops dead and sent U.S. gasoline prices back up \u2014 posing new problems for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even with glimmers of hope for talks, the sides could be headed back to all-out war, with Trump warning that \u201cevery time Iran kills an American Soldier\u201d going forward, \u201cthey will pay for that killing many times over.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The renewed escalations reflect \u201ca fundamental misreading of the Iranian psyche and a lack of learning\u201d from previous fighting, said Mona Yacoubian, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s driven by a calculus on either side that they can double down on military escalation as a way of breaking the impasse and getting the other side to relent,\u201d Yacoubian said. \u201cThe danger, of course, is that the more escalatory it becomes, the harder it will be to seize any potential opening back to diplomacy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Trump administration says the door to diplomacy is open<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. is still open to negotiating, telling reporters Sunday night that Iran continues \u201cto send signals that they want to talk, that they want to negotiate, but their behavior is what we\u2019re responding to. And their behavior is they\u2019re launching missiles and drones at ships\u201d in the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world\u2019s oil normally passes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States always remains open to a diplomatic solution, and we\u2019ve tried multiple times with Iran, and we\u2019ll continue to try,\u201d he said. \u201dIf that door opens, we\u2019ll be happy to see it open.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump is focused on making Iran pay for the recent deaths of U.S. troops, violations of the interim deal reached last month and attacks on ships in the strait, according to a U.S. official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.<\/span><\/p>\n

The official said that military strikes on Iran would continue until Trump decides otherwise, but that talks between the countries also would go on.<\/span><\/p>\n

For some outside observers, the administration appears to be struggling to find an off-ramp, both militarily and diplomatically.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis administration currently is flustered,\u201d said Alan Eyre, a former U.S. diplomat once involved in past nuclear negotiations with Tehran and now a fellow at the Middle East Institute. \u201cIt really doesn\u2019t have a coherent and consistent strategy as to how to extricate itself from this quagmire.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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There are some limitations to Trump\u2019s air war<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The U.S. military can only accomplish so much as it ramps up attacks on Iran, experts say.<\/span><\/p>\n

The conflict has demonstrated the limits of relying solely on air power, said Christopher Preble, a scholar at the Stimson Center think tank focused on U.S. foreign policy. But he noted that sending in ground troops would be unpopular with many Americans and members of Congress.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems that President Trump certainly has the capability to continue to bomb, and Iran will have the capability to continue to keep the strait closed \u2014 or closed well enough,\u201d Preble said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Follow live updates on the Trump administration<\/a><\/p>\n

David Schenker, a former official in the first Trump administration who is now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the renewed strikes on Iranian infrastructure are a repeat of attacks during the early weeks of the war. And those did not result in Iran\u2019s capitulation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. hit 13,000 targets in the first 6 weeks of the war, and this didn\u2019t sway Iran to take a knee,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Retired Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who served under President Joe Biden, said previous wars such as Vietnam showed the limitations of air power alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally, you have to couple air power with ground operations, sometimes naval operations as well, and certainly space today,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

When launching the war on Feb. 28, the U.S. and Israel struck many fixed targets identified before the conflict began. But Iran had a long time to prepare for the attacks by concealing and dispersing weapons.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo the easy targets are pretty much gone,\u201d Kendall said. \u201cThey can hide ballistic missiles and cruise missiles and small air vehicles pretty easily. So it\u2019s a very hard job to try to suppress that kind of a threat over a period of time. And that\u2019s why they\u2019re still able to attack not just ships in the Straits, but also our bases in the region and so on.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Diplomacy has struggled with a lack of trust between the US and Iran<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A diplomatic solution also could prove elusive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Eyre, of the Middle East Institute, said the Trump administration has shown no preference for \u201cactual diplomacy,\u201d relying instead on close advisers with little international relations experience while outsourcing some of the work to mediators such as Qatar, Pakistan and Egypt.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a tough road ahead of us, but it theoretically could be done,\u201d Eyre said of potential negotiations to end the conflict. \u201cUnfortunately, there is so little mutual confidence in the other side. There\u2019s so little bilateral trust between the U.S. and Iran that it makes everything so much harder.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Both Schenker and Yacoubian said recent comments from Trump, Rubio and their Iranian counterparts reflect some openness to diplomacy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yacoubian pointed to the \u201cmeasured\u201d response from Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the recent killing of U.S. service members in Jordan, indicating a possibility for an off-ramp. Iran\u2019s release last week of an Iranian-American woman who had not been allowed to leave the country also showed a sign of goodwill from Tehran, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

But these small, positive signals could quickly become moot if the decision by Yemen\u2019s Iran-backed Houthi rebels Monday to announce a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia expands to a complete shutdown of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.<\/span><\/p>\n

That, Yacoubian says, could constitute \u201ca perfect storm of disruption\u201d for the already precarious global economy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amiri reported from New York. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Read more A fifth-generation logger from Allagash is likely to face Susan Collins. But is Troy Jackson ready?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the Trump administration says it is open to diplomacy, Iran so far has refused to loosen its grip over the crucial oil shipping corridor in the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nUS and Iran dig in over the Strait of Hormuz, showing the limits of intensifying airstrikes - Boston Relocation Insider<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bostonrelocationinsider.com\/?p=5395\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US and Iran dig in over the Strait of Hormuz, showing the limits of intensifying airstrikes - 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