A crippling US-enforced naval blockade is draining Iran of $160 million in oil revenue every single day, striking directly at the financial lifeline that funds the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the militant networks Tehran relies upon to sustain its grip on power, according to Scott Uehlinger, a retired US Navy officer and former CIA station chief.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from 2:41, Uehlinger delivered a stark assessment of the economic toll being inflicted on Tehran. “Iran is losing about $160 million of oil revenue every single day,” he said, “which it uses to pay the IRGC and the Iraqi terrorists brought in to protect the regime. And that money is going away — and that’s why Iran is angry about that.” The statement cut to the heart of what Uehlinger described as the blockade’s most devastating and underreported dimension: its capacity to hollow out the financial architecture that keeps the Iranian government functioning.
The mechanism behind this economic siege, Uehlinger explained, was a distant blockade being executed not from within the Strait of Hormuz but from the Gulf of Oman. US naval vessels were operating outside the strait itself, using surveillance assets to track Iranian shipping movements and effectively seal every Iranian port from international commerce. The approach allowed Washington to impose maximum economic pain while minimising direct military confrontation inside the narrow and heavily scrutinised waterway.
Uehlinger was dismissive of suggestions that the cost of maintaining this posture was unsustainable for the United States. He pointed out that only approximately five percent of US oil imports originated from the Persian Gulf, meaning the closure of the strait carried far less economic consequence for Washington than for other global powers. Furthermore, he argued that the naval assets deployed to enforce the blockade would have been stationed in the broader region regardless, making the incremental cost of the operation far lower than headline figures suggested. Read_More…