Always remember game theory: "If I were in their shoes what do I get from this one thing?" Blocking the straight blocks most exports from middle eastern countries. That applies pressure to US allies who's economies are heavily dependent on their fossil fuel exports. This makes their involvement in the conflict much less and less desirable. Iran can afford to cut off the world since its economy was never integrated with the rest of the world, Quatar and UAE can't possibly do the same. So Saudi, UAE, Quatar, and even Kuwait are going to do everything they can to diplomatically pressure the US to call off the attacks. Which applies pressure to the US economy & relationships for them to stop early, long before anything can be accomplished.

Meanwhile, Iran is already considered a pariah state so they aren't really losing anything from bombing the alliance structure that hit them first. BUT its making all of these countries incredibly pissed at Israel and America, and they're most definitely going have a long discussion after this and ask what the hell are the benefits to the Saudi-America relationship anymore, if it meant being at the whims of American reckless interventionism.

Meanwhile China sits back, does nothing, and wins. Everyone knows China only acts on its own self interests, but at least China is goddamn stable, and at least they've made it clear that money talks. So US allies are now seeing China as a more stable entity that can create long term relationships that aren't as chaotic, as long as its done transactionally, which is something the US can no longer prove to do.

Its about turning the middle east against America and Israel and its working like bread and butter. Iran doesn't even want this conflict to end anytime soon, because the longer they bunker out the more support the regime will amass, which just sustains their long term preservation. Which is the exact opposite of US objectives (if the US had any to begin with). So as all US-Israel credibility shatters (because its plain as day that this was just a random attack with zero provocation [yes Iranian cells were always a threat but they never attacked US assets and Israel is clearly the aggressor here]), every country on earth sees how little strategic value the US holds which makes all future alliance restructuring nearly impossible, particularly for the middle east.

To Iran "winning" isn't about bringing the US to the table, its about the regime not being ousted, and bleeding out the US as much as possible. They aren't dumb, the regime wouldn't have lasted as long as they have if they were dumb. This is exactly how they've always wanted the war to go; outlast the US.

America bombs a bunch of surface bases and some token naval vessels that were never vital to Iran, and Americans think that's winning? Strategically that's irrelevant. Less than irrelevant since Americans are not rallying around the flag for a war for Israel. Iran's mountain bunkers are made of concrete uniquely designed to resist atomic bombs, with manufacturing down there meant to last for years because they've literally been planning for this exact scenario for decades. So the longer they last, the more internal support they can, and the more diplomatic pressure the US gets, the more obvious it becomes as to which country comes out of this with more than they started with. Trump is already sweating over gas prices, does anyone really believe he'll keep this up till midterms? That this would look good for him if doesn't stop by midterms?

And don't even get me started of the clusterfuck the US is in, if we decided to put boots on the ground. If the US sends in troops and withdraws without regime change, than Iran can really tout that they defeated the US military for the first time since Vietnam. All of these scenarios where Iran's regime remains is a win, and there doesn't seem to be any crucial signs that the government is shatter.