The small group of Islamist regime loyalists now ruling Iran by committee may be able to fool the world with AI-generated propaganda videos, paper statements attributed to an invisible ayatollah and ChatGPT-scripted posts on X, but they can’t escape the reality of an American naval blockade pushing their economy off the cliff.

President Trump has the upper hand.

His best path forward is to pursue three lines of effort in parallel: Sustain the blockade and accompanying economic warfare to destabilize the regime’s hold on the state; remake the world in America’s energy dominance image to mitigate long-term price impacts while undermining China’s global ambition to defeat the United States; and order the US military to forge a path through the Strait of Hormuz to restore freedom of navigation on our terms not Tehran’s.

You might call the latter Operation Epic Passage — a combined naval and air mission of self-defense that offers escort to tankers and restores freedom of navigation, all while making clear to Tehran the devastating consequences of breaking cease-fire.

You might also call it “Blockade Plus.”

Squeeze economy

Whether Iran’s oil storage completely runs out in a day or a month, Iran is no longer exporting oil — the lifeblood of its economy — or petrochemicals, steel or any other product at a level needed to keep the government afloat, banks capitalized and employees paid.

The currency is in free fall, domestic prices are skyrocketing, reserves are being drained and escape hatches — sanctions evasion routes the regime typically relies upon — are getting closed soon after they open.

A gasoline shortage comes next.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s Operation Economic Fury is more than just a naval blockade.

Every department and agency in the U.S. Government has been directed to prioritize economic warfare against the Revolutionary Guard.

The intelligence community is now laser focused on this objective in a way it hasn’t been in some years.

Every bank account — and crypto wallet — where the regime has cash is being frozen.

Sanctions evasion trails are being tracked down with calls being made to the highest levels of foreign governments warning of dire enforcement actions to come without immediate action – from Baghdad to Islamabad to Beijing.

There is zero doubt that the trajectory for the regime in Tehran is state collapse.

But by imposing a continued shutdown of the internet and controlling the flow of information, the IRGC rulers use cognitive warfare to alter our perception of that reality, and to make it incredibly challenging to understand how much time they have left.

And, even knowing that Operation Epic Fury just set back Iran’s nuclear, missile and drone threats to the United States for a generation, Americans understandably want prices lower.

And that means Trump cannot allow a terror-sponsoring pirate-like remnant regime to hold the global economy hostage — making Epic Passage a necessary step.

Boost American oil

On the domestic energy front, every feasible way to expedite refinery expansion and modernization in the United States should be fast-tracked.

Internationally, every new oil project an American company has ever wanted to pursue should get the full backing of the administration.

In the Gulf, the US should partner with Saudi Arabia and the UAE to form a new overland pipeline consortium — TransAram — to undercut Tehran’s long-term threat to the Strait of Hormuz by sending oil, gas and petrochemicals overland in multiple directions (including through Israel to the Europe).

In the end, if American — and hopefully allied — naval and air forces can clear and defend a narrow path for even a limited tanker flow to emerge from the Gulf, while still sustaining Operation Economic Fury, it’ll be checkmate for the paper ayatollah.

Oil prices will fall and the regime’s strangulation will either deliver the remaining nuclear concessions Trump seeks or accelerate its collapse.

Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, was senior counselor for the National Energy Dominance Council and director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction for the National Security Council.