The U.S. military has “successfully destroyed 10 Iranian tankers in just the last week,” U.S. Central Command announced Wednesday, marking a steep escalation in President Trump’s declared strategy of “Economic Warfare and Isolation” of the Islamist regime. “These vessels were part of a multibillion-dollar shadow network that funds the IRGC, and Iran cannot defend them.”

The strikes came in response to Iran’s continued attack on American naval ships and bases throughout the region. “Iran continues to try to hit U.S. naval ships,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained Tuesday. “And for every time they do that or try to do that, they’re going to lose tankers.”

The U.S. military destroyed nearly all of Iran’s military capabilities through conventional warfare operations over February and March of this year. Since then, the adversaries have exchanged occasional fire, as the remnants of the Iranian regime — principally the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — simply refuse to surrender. Iran increasingly relied on asymmetrical attacks, such as firing upon civilian shipping in the Persian Gulf, attacking civilian targets in neighboring countries, and launching cyber-attacks.

After months of unsuccessful negotiations, President Trump fell back on a strategy of economic blockade. Until that point, U.S. forces had allowed Iranian oil tankers to exit freely from the Strait of Hormuz, even though the Iranian regime was blockading the tankers of every other nation in the Persian Gulf. However, these oil profits funded the IRGC, thus enabling it to increase its hold on power as the rest of the nation languished.

The blockade strangled Iran’s oil exports for some time, although chasing blockade runners across the Indian Ocean soon demanded manpower. On August 24, the U.S. Treasury Department announced an expansion of that blockade, “Operation Economic Outcast: an unprecedented, whole-of-government, economic campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran and its enablers.”

The economic measures against Iran continue to escalate, with new sanctions announced Wednesday on Iranian airlines.

Meanwhile, the move to sink Iranian oil tankers, as opposed to merely chasing down and capturing them, allows the U.S. military to more effectively restrict all Iranian exports of oil, thus increasing the economic pressure on the IRGC.

The move bears some resemblance to the Trump administration’s earlier actions against Venezuela, where assembled U.S. forces fired on and destroyed boats believed to be smuggling narcotics. However, the U.S. Navy never fired on oil tankers carrying sanctioned Venezuelan oil, choosing to chase them down and capture them instead.

Several factors may play a role in the escalation of strategy. Dark fleet oil tankers fleeing Venezuela across the North Atlantic had to flee a long way before finding a safe harbor from American pursuit, whereas tankers leaving Iran have more and closer options. Furthermore, the Maduro regime never fired on American vessels, whereas the Iranian regime is actively doing so. Finally, it could be a deliberate step of escalation to increase the economic pressure on Iran while decreasing the burden of the blockade on American personnel.

Overall, the move plays to American strengths. The U.S. has overwhelming kinetic power and naval superiority, especially after sinking Iran’s entire regular navy during Operation Epic Fury. The U.S. also has much greater economic strength. Thus, instead of allowing Iran to choose its battlefield, America is now taking initiative on its own preferred ground.

There is still the question of why it took so long for America to arrive at this outcome. If the U.S. was already engaged in kinetic military operations against the Iranian regime, and if it had declared a blockade, why was it holding its fire against Iranian tankers? If the action is acceptable now, surely it would have been acceptable sooner with greater success.

Furthermore, why not go ahead and sink all Iranian tankers, instead of just retaliating by sinking five tankers every time Iran attacks American ships? Why only escalate the war slowly, instead of striking as hard as possible, to bring a swift end?

The answer to these questions likely comes down to the fact that these actions are far less savory. America is paying back the Iranian regime in its own kind, but that was a very nasty kind of warfare. Iran responded to attacks on its military by firing upon civilian targets. Now, America is responding to attacks on its military by firing upon civilian targets. By striking at Iranian economic targets, the U.S. has further legitimized Iranian strikes on economic targets as well.

There is an argument to be made — and the administration will surely make it — that the oil tankers are legitimate targets because they economically prop up the Iranian regime. That case relies on the fact that the conflict has turned into a state of total war, at least for Iran. The Iranian regime has leveraged the nation’s entire economy to sustain the war effort, rather like the U.S., U.K., and Germany did during World War II. Thus, striking Iranian oil tankers is the equivalent of bombing German factories in World War II.

The twists and turns of the U.S.-Iran conflict this year have created an unusual situation where Iran has entered a state of total war, but America has not. The calculation is that the part of the U.S. economy devoted to military funding is stronger than the entire Iranian economy. Furthermore, the Trump administration is calculating that it can keep the American economy insulated from Iranian assaults while pummeling Iran to the point of submission.

The question then remains whether the Iranian regime can hit back at the U.S. economy in a meaningful way before its economic reserves expire. Already, Americans are facing the most expensive Labor Day gas prices on record, with the national average reaching $4.15 on Tuesday. Iran also issued warnings for oil tankers to evacuate areas around Kuwait and Bahrain, where the U.S. has military bases, a thinly veiled threat that it may strike trapped oil tankers in response to American strikes.

However, Iran’s most likely move is to rely yet again on asymmetrical warfare. It lost militarily. It is losing economically. But it might just be able to inflict such heavy political damage on President Trump that his party suffers midterm losses too profound to sustain the war any longer.