WHEN people think about war, they usually picture airstrikes, missile exchanges, troop movements and battlefield dominance. But that lens is too narrow for understanding a conflict involving Iran. The real contest is not simply about who can strike harder. It is about who can impose the greater cost, who can endure more pain and who breaks first under economic pressure.

That is where any serious analysis of an Iran war must begin. This would not be a conventional contest between equal military powers. The United States and Israel hold overwhelming superiority in traditional military terms. If the objectives were simply to destroy targets, degrade infrastructure or dominate the skies, the military balance would be clear. But wars are not decided by hardware alone. They are decided by strategy. And Iran’s strategy has never depended on winning in the conventional sense.

Iran does not need to defeat the United States or Israel on the battlefield. It only needs to make the conflict too costly to sustain. That is where the Strait of Hormuz becomes central. This narrow waterway carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply, making it one of the most important economic choke points on the planet. Iran knows this well. Its........

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