According to a report in the New York Times, Iran's leadership has grown more confident in its ability to attack targets across the Middle East and sustain the confrontation despite strikes and losses it has suffered. This confidence does not mean Iran has emerged from the confrontation stronger or unscathed, the report said, but instead reflects the government's belief that it can endure a prolonged conflict and continue imposing costs on Washington.
The consequences have extended beyond military facilities into markets and homes. Iran's Statistics Center, data cited by Reuters showed, recorded average annual inflation of 66 percent in July, with consumer prices 87.9 percent higher than a year earlier and food prices up 128 percent annually. Families have been forced to cut spending on food and basic goods under pressure from the conflict, sanctions and blockades, according to the Associated Press.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the country's foreign trade had fallen roughly 35 percent because of sanctions and blockades, Reuters reported. Despite this toll, current and former U.S. officials quoted in the New York Times report said Tehran shows no apparent willingness to reach a comprehensive agreement with Washington.
Some officials believe the Iranian government may seek to keep the conflict going until the U.S. midterm elections in November, hoping that rising fuel prices and declining support for the war will weaken President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. The Trump administration is betting that strangling Iran's economy will push Tehran to make concessions on the Strait of Hormuz and its nuclear program, Reuters reported.
The Strait of Hormuz figures centrally in these calculations. Iran's government has recognized the pressure it can exert by disrupting the passage through which roughly one-fifth of global oil supplies traveled before the conflict. Yet using the strait to drain the United States and its allies has also tightened Iran's isolation and broadened the sanctions imposed against it.
