RAND Analysts Argue US Should Hold Iran Blockade Course
The article acknowledges that economic coercion has a mixed record on regime change even when it produces a full economic crisis — which is the central weakness of the stay-the-course argument.
If the November 11 Abu Dhabi talks collapse without a ceasefire framework, the administration faces a choice between escalation options that RAND explicitly warns against and a withdrawal that Republican supporters are already calling for. That political squeeze, not Iranian economic pain alone, is what will determine whether the blockade holds through 2027.
RAND's argument lands two weeks before the Abu Dhabi talks, giving the administration's stay-the-course faction an analytical anchor at the moment Trump is also floating a return to full-scale bombing.
The economic case rests on two concrete indicators: the rial at 2.5 million to the dollar versus roughly 630,000 in 2024, and Iran's shadow oil-storage fleet now depleted, which removes the buffer that had softened blockade pressure on the Iranian economy.
If the Abu Dhabi talks on November 11 produce no framework, the escalation-versus-withdrawal debate inside the administration will sharpen, and this piece will be cited by both sides.
Has Iran's depletion of its floating oil storage actually translated into measurable cuts to domestic fuel distribution or industrial output, or is Tehran still managing internal supply through other channels the article does not name?
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