Six months into the war waged by the United States and Israel against Iran, analysts have compared the conflict to numerous historic wars. The Vietnam War and the 1956 Suez Crisis are frequently cited. However, at least in the current phase, this confrontation bears a stronger resemblance to the 19th-century American Civil War.
Kabul 24 News Agency: This parallel is drawn primarily because intensified pressure on maritime routes, expanded primary and secondary sanctions, and targeted military strikes collectively project a hybrid strategy. At an analytical level, this approach can be compared to the “Anaconda Plan.”
During the American Civil War, the Anaconda Plan was the Union’s initiative to gradually defeat the Confederacy. The strategy did not rely solely on battlefield victories; instead, by blockading Southern ports, severing the South’s access to the outside world, and securing control of the Mississippi River, it sought to progressively exhaust the Confederacy’s economic capacity and military endurance.
Today, Washington appears to be integrating economic pressure with the suppression of Iran’s military and naval capabilities. The Strait of Hormuz occupies a pivotal role in this equation—a waterway that, while not identical to the Mississippi River, remains decisive in shaping the balance of the war and imposing severe costs on the global economy.
One of Iran’s foremost strategic advantages has been its capacity to leverage Hormuz to escalate war costs for the United States and its allies. Washington’s objective is to erode this leverage, strengthen alternative maritime corridors, and simultaneously intensify economic pressure on Iran to gain the upper hand in a war of attrition.
Conversely, if Iran is deprived of its traditional leverage in Hormuz while facing a tightening blockade and escalating economic pressure, it may turn to far higher-risk options to restore equilibrium. These could include expanding the theater of war and targeting vital regional infrastructure—a trajectory that risks generating a new “balance of terror,” wherein neither party can enforce its strategy without incurring catastrophic costs.
Ultimately, the success or failure of this strategy hinges on Iran’s economic resilience. For this reason, economic pressure forms the core of Washington’s strategy, with military force operating not as a substitute for sanctions, but as a complementary instrument within a long-term strategy of attrition.
The central questions now emerge: What is Iran’s counter-strategy against the corridor-building projects south of Hormuz and the systematic effort to strip Tehran of a core strategic lever?
Could mounting sanctions, blockades, and efforts to suffocate the Iranian economy compel Tehran toward drastic measures, such as targeting critical infrastructure across the southern Persian Gulf?
Iran may seek to force a shared burden of sanctions and blockades upon others to establish a new balance of terror—hoping to create leverage for future negotiations to loosen the blockade and achieve partial sanctions relief.
*Salahaddin Khadiv*
