Make no mistake, the latest battles between Iran and the US over the Strait of Hormuz are about nuclear weapons.
Of course, the Hormuz wars are also about control of the waterway and money, but in the larger view, they are really about the future of Iran's nuclear weapons program.
In two wars in June 2025 and early 2026, Israel and the US bombed Iran's nuclear program backward from being months away from a nuclear weapon to being multiple years away.
The one significant strand of the nuclear weapons program that still needs to be squared off is Iran's 400-plus kilograms of 60% highly enriched uranium, currently covered in rubble, but still potentially very dangerous.
While US President Donald Trump made some highly problematic concessions in his deal with Iran in June, one critical concession that he got from Iran was setting a basis for removing or neutralizing that 60% enriched uranium.
This is what Iran is really fighting about with Hormuz: how much can it use reinflaming the strait to get Trump to back off even off of the nuclear issue. This means the Islamic Republic is using economic extortion at Hormuz to try to wrangle a better deal post-war out of the fateful nuclear concessions it made mid-war.
From day one of the deal, Iran has been playing games with the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump, Iran dispute Hormuz status
When Trump immediately called the strait open, the Islamic regime insisted alternately that the strait was not yet open, or that it would be open, but only to those who paid enormous fees – as a way to compensate Iran for war losses.
After a flare-up with the US over that issue, Iran seemed to retreat temporarily, saying the strait could be crossed without fees for 60 days, while simultaneously signaling it would begin collecting fees by the end of the 60-day negotiations to implement the deal between the countries.
Iran caused flare-ups at various points to deter Israel from taking aggressive actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon, eventually effectively ending the war there.
More recently, Iran has started to attack ships periodically that cross through the strait in an area closer to Oman without registering with Tehran.
In the prior flare-up, Iran attacked allied US ships, leading to very modest attacks by American forces on some Iranian positions near the strait.
Iran's multiple attacks on US-allied ships this week led to a slightly more robust series of attacks by American forces on over 80 Iranian positions and small ships (the US destroyed virtually all the larger ships during the war earlier this year) around the strait.
But these attacks were still a far cry from anything which would intimidate the Iranians into giving up their larger grand plan of using intermittent fights over Hormuz to try to escape the nuclear concessions which the Trump administration says they committed to.
Iran's quick response to US attacks
In fact, Iran wasted no time in attacking multiple American Arab allies in the region, including US bases, making sure it showed how little regard it had for the American attacks.
Why doesn't Iran care about 80 attacks by the US?
Because the targets were unimportant tactical targets near Hormuz, and nothing that actually is of strategic value to the regime.
Trump is avoiding such attacks for now, fearing a return to full war will erase his gains in bringing gas prices down since the war ended.
And that is the essence of the dilemma.
As long as Iran knows that Trump fears going back to war and hitting them anywhere sensitive, why would they make concessions on nuclear weapons?
All they need to do is to keep periodically shaking the boat, or in this case the strait, and they reason that eventually Trump will be worn down by continued months of gas price gyrations, to beg for stabilizing Hormuz, even if it means he gives back the concessions Iran made on the nuclear issue.
This leaves Trump with two choices if he wants to outlast Iran's pressure on the nuclear issue.
One is to hit the Islamic regime really hard again, at the level of top officials or weapons or economic assets of true strategic value, and be ready to risk a return to war if necessary.
His other option is to keep American forces in the region for a much more extended period to periodically symbolically strike Iran, but keep those strikes below a certain threshold, while also holding back the funds Iran is owed, until the regime starts to behave and he wears it down into following through on the nuclear concessions it already made.
For Trump, the US, Israel, and others threatened by Iran's nuclear program to close the box on that threat – at least for 15 years or so – he must realize that what is at stake in these Hormuz wars is far more than gas prices.