WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has deployed naval blockades as his go-to strategy for pressuring governments in Venezuela, Cuba, and most recently Iran, but military experts warn that the Middle Eastern standoff presents far more complex challenges than those faced in the Caribbean region.
Iran differs significantly from Cuba and Venezuela because it has shut down a vital energy shipping corridor, which means prolonged conflict will increasingly damage the worldwide economy. The Islamic Republic also represents a more formidable military opponent than America’s hemispheric adversaries and demands continuous military deployment thousands of miles from U.S. coastlines.
Tehran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz provides substantial bargaining power during the current fragile ceasefire, as escalating economic consequences – particularly rising gasoline costs during an election year – might compel Trump’s Republican government to abandon its maritime blockade of Iranian ports and waters, according to defense analysts.
“It’s really a question now of which country, the U.S. or Iran, has a greater pain tolerance,” said Max Boot, a military historian and senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Whether Trump’s pressure strategy – deploying America’s dominant naval forces to halt Iran’s sanctioned petroleum and commodity exports – will prove successful remains uncertain. Several analysts believe Trump’s Venezuelan victory resulted more from the U.S. military operation that removed leader Nicolás Maduro than from American vessels intercepting prohibited oil tankers to establish U.S. dominance over the South American nation.
Meanwhile, America’s oil sanctions against Cuba have triggered the island’s worst economic catastrophe in decades. Despite recent rare diplomatic meetings between U.S. and Cuban representatives on the island, the financial pressure has not achieved the Trump administration’s declared objective of regime change.
“I do think that the success of the Maduro mission in Venezuela has probably emboldened the president,” said Todd Huntley, director of Georgetown University’s National Security Law Program.
However, this doesn’t mean the Venezuelan and Iranian situations are comparable across geographic, military, or political dimensions. “There are some major differences,” said Huntley, a retired Navy captain and judge advocate general.
Although the Iranian blockade has inflicted serious economic damage, including preventing cargo ships from bringing in various materials, the nation has managed to export some of its prohibited oil, according to vessel monitoring organizations.
Tehran has refused Trump’s demands to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of global oil typically passes, and has resumed attacking vessels this week. Disrupted shipments through the waterway have caused fuel prices to surge well beyond the region and increased costs for food and numerous other goods, creating electoral complications for Trump before November’s midterm elections.
“Blockades are usually just one tool of a mechanism used in a conflict,” said Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime history professor at Campbell University in North Carolina. “They can be important. But it’s only one element. And I don’t think it’s going to be enough to convince the Iranians.”
Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, claimed last week that “no ship has evaded U.S. forces.” The command overseeing the Middle East said it has directed 31 ships to turn around or return to port as of Wednesday.
Maritime industry organizations remain doubtful. Lloyd’s List Intelligence reported “a steady flow of shadow fleet traffic” has passed in and out of the Gulf, including 11 tankers with Iranian cargo that have left the Gulf of Oman outside the strait since April 13.
The maritime intelligence firm Windward said this week that Iranian traffic continues to flow “via deception.”
Iranian vessels employ multiple methods to circumvent the blockade, including falsifying their location monitoring systems or sailing through Pakistani territorial waters, Mercogliano explained. He emphasized that the enormous amount of maritime traffic requiring military inspection presents a formidable challenge.
The most recent U.S. blockade comparable to the current Iranian operation occurred during the Kennedy presidency in the early 1960s, when America established a blockade against Cuba, Huntley noted.
“And it wasn’t even called a blockade,” he said. “We called it quarantine.”
Certain historical naval blockades have proven effective, such as Britain’s blockade against Germany during World War I. “But they tend to be very long-term impacts, whereas Trump is looking for short-term, quick results,” according to Boot, the military historian.
He suggested Trump likely viewed the blockade targeting Venezuelan sanctioned oil tankers as instrumental in achieving regime change in that country. However, Boot argued it resulted more from the U.S. removing Maduro and subsequent cooperation from his vice president and current acting president, Delcy Rodríguez.
“There is no Delcy Rodríguez in Cuba or Iran,” Boot said. “I think his success in Venezuela led him astray, thinking that this was a template that could be replicated elsewhere. He sees it as a huge success at little cost. And, in fact, it turns out to be a unique set of circumstances.”
