The diplomatic/military dialogue between Iran and America is being conducted like a movie screened in slow motion. Each side is trying to demonstrate an inexhaustible supply of time, with the only deadline – possibly – being the U.S. midterm elections.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said repeatedly that the midterm elections don't interest him, is indicating that something will happen after them – either war or an agreement. In early September, he predicted that the war would end "immediately after" the midterms. More or less polished versions of that statement have been uttered ever since the war began seven months ago, and they are evidently still valid.
But when it began, the war was framed as a short, swift, painful, decisive and, above all, one-sided operation, in which America was the attacker and Iran had only one option, surrender. Since then, it has become a two-sided battle. Washington has largely lost control over the dimension of time, and Tehran has begun using it as a bargaining chip. The question of who will blink first has been transferred from the ophthalmology department to the department of analysis and punditry.
At first glance, the data indicate that the Americans have the advantage. Trump says the Strait of Hormuz is open to all ships other than Iran's; that there are also alternative supply routes that satisfy global oil needs; and that soon, there will be no need for Hormuz at all. Iran, for its part, says it can maintain the current situation indefinitely.
Oil is indeed flowing from the Gulf, but not yet in prewar amounts. And the numbers can be misleading. On August 31, Trump said that on average, 30 ships were transiting Hormuz every night. But he didn't say whether these were giant tankers that could carry two million barrels of oil apiece or smaller ones. The highest possible figure would be 60 million barrels of oil moving through the strait each day – three times the prewar volume.
But that same day, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that on average, more than 17 million barrels a day were passing through Hormuz. Three days later, Vice President JD Vance put the number at 15 million barrels. On September 13, it was Energy Secretary Chris Wright's turn; he said that on average 9 million barrels a day were going through Hormuz. And companies that track shipping through the Gulf offer an even more modest estimate – 7 to 8 million barrels a day.
None of this means that the numbers are lies. There were days when 15 million barrels got through and days when only 4 or 5 million barrels did. But even if the average stands at 12 to 15 million barrels a day, that is only around a third of the amount that passed through the strait prior to the war.
Yet the story is also more complicated than the number of ships and barrels transiting the strait. A large portion of this oil, around 40 percent, is moving through the Gulf via the ship-to-ship method. This method involves a relatively small tanker leaving a port in an area where there's a danger of an Iranian attack and going to a relatively safe port like the United Arab Emirates' Fujairah or an Omani port, and once there, transferring its cargo to a giant tanker that will then head to its destination in Asia.
This system keeps giant tankers from having to spend a lot of time in the Gulf. But it also requires a large number of smaller "shuttle" tankers that spend a long time waiting in line to unload their cargo. Due to the crowding, these shuttles are leaving again only seven to 10 days later. And the cost of the shipments, including insurance, has risen accordingly.
According to shipping company data, the cost of transporting a barrel of oil has jumped from 2 to 3 percent of the value of the oil to more than 25 percent – around $3 per barrel. And on top of the high transit costs are the enormous outlays on military protection for the ships and the cost of maintaining U.S. troops in the area. Yet this troop presence has yet to convince insurance companies to lower their premiums.
No less important is the fact that given the high shipping costs, the Gulf states have been forced to give their customers significant discounts on the price of the oil as partial compensation. Consequently, even if their export volume has risen, their revenues have not.
Granted, Trump can say the strait isn't hermetically sealed, and technically, he's correct. But there's a big difference between a strait that can be transited in some way and a normally functioning commercial shipping route. Before the war, roughly 125 big commercial ships went through Hormuz every day. On the last weekend for which figures are available, just 17 got through.
Not only are oil exports still far below their previous level, but oil prices are far higher than they were before the war. Trump may claim he controls the strait, but not on the truly important issue – the price of oil.
Trump also claims that alternative routes are already up and running and that they will soon be able to meet global oil needs. Saudi Arabia indeed had such a route until recently – an east-west pipeline from Abqaiq to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. But in July, the Houthis entered the picture and imposed a blockade on Saudi trade, attacking tankers and the port itself. As a result, Saudi Arabia ultimately decided to close its terminals in Yanbu and resume using Hormuz.
In September, it shipped 2.9 billion barrels a day via Hormuz, most through the ship-to-ship method. That is up from around 700,000 barrels a day in August. But Saudi Arabia's return to Hormuz doesn't show that Iran's blockade of the strait has weakened. Instead, it shows that the routes intended to bypass it have also been impaired.
On the other hand, Iran's situation is also getting worse. The U.S. blockade of Hormuz enables it to export only around 250,000 barrels of oil a day through various improvised methods. That is down from around 2 million barrels a day in March, and it currently has no way of bridging this gap. With such a low level of exports, even the fact that China is buying most of its oil doesn't help.
Similarly, its alternative overland routes – via Pakistan or over the long road to the Caspian Sea and thence to Russia – provide fairly weak returns compared to its volume of exports before the war. And on top of these problems are the heavy sanctions recently imposed by the Trump administration, including a ban on trading or conducting banking activity with Iranian companies. This even includes countries and companies that provide ground services for Iranian airlines.
Nevertheless, these sanctions have a side effect that also hurts Iran's neighbors, and especially Iraq, which operates dozens of flights to Iran from four different airports. In 2025, Iraq's trade with Iran came to some $10 billion, including its purchases of Iranian natural gas to fuel its power plants.
For Iran, Iraq is an essential economic artery – not only in terms of trade, but as a source of foreign currency. The U.S. sanctions are gradually closing off this artery, just as they have closed off the flow of money through the UAE, which until recently hosted thousands of Iranian companies, including shell companies owned by the Revolutionary Guards, on its territory.
For both Abu Dhabi and Baghdad, a long-term severance of economic ties with Iran would mean losing billions of dollars. But while the UAE can absorb this loss, Iraq's economic situation is much worse. Moreover, the political pressure exerted by pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, which are demanding that it not capitulate to the U.S. sanctions, is threatening the stability of Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi's government on the eve of the September 30 deadline for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq.
The shift from a high-intensity blitzkrieg war that was supposed to defeat Iran and topple its regime to an economic war of attrition has, in Iran's view, created a kind of symmetry in which, for the first time, it isn't the only side being hurt. But as the situation of neither war nor peace persists, Tehran also seems to realize that while its main bargaining chip still exists and remains threatening, its value is being eroded.
Iran isn't capable of restoring its own exports of oil to normal, but it is capable of preventing America from turning this anomalous situation into the new normal. Trump rejected Its latest proposal, to open Hormuz within seven days on more or less the same terms it has always insisted on, but the indirect negotiations haven't stopped. Qatar continues to mediate, and on Sunday, reports emerged that Iran will make yet another "amended and coordinated" offer.
The danger now lies in the difference between the two countries' clocks. Washington is convinced that time is on its side, while Tehran still believes there's a limit to the price America is willing to pay. And as long as both sides are convinced that time is on their side, each passing day doesn't necessarily bring them closer to an agreement. Instead, it may well only deepen the chasm between their views, until the effort to wear each other down becomes a source of escalation in its own right.
