Life Inside Iran Is Becoming Intolerable

There was a perceptible hint in dispatches from CNN and the Wall Street Journal over the last two weeks that their journalists couldn’t believe their own reporting. Could it be that the president had accidentally backed into a strategy to throttle Iran into submission that’s actually working?

Perhaps. Axios’s reporting on Friday lends credence to that tentative conclusion. According to U.S. officials, Iran has “lost much of its control over” the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian forces can still fire on the vessels that attempt to transit the strait via the U.S.-guarded Omani channel, but its targeting capabilities are significantly degraded. Just 2 percent of the ships that traversed the strait were attacked, U.S. officials contend.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.

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There was a perceptible hint in dispatches from CNN and the Wall Street Journal over the last two weeks that their journalists couldn’t believe their own reporting. Could it be that the president had accidentally backed into a strategy to throttle Iran into submission that’s actually working?

Perhaps. Axios’s reporting on Friday lends credence to that tentative conclusion. According to U.S. officials, Iran has “lost much of its control over” the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian forces can still fire on the vessels that attempt to transit the strait via the U.S.-guarded Omani channel, but its targeting capabilities are significantly degraded. Just 2 percent of the ships that traversed the strait were attacked, U.S. officials contend.

About the Author

Noah Rothman

Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review. His third book, Blood and Progress: A Century of Left-Wing Violence, was published by Hachette in May 2026.