I'm not so sure the Mullahs are true believers in the 12th Imam. They have pretty big accounts. In the billions. But, they might use the Shia doctrine that the world must be in Chaos to bring the Imam Mahdi out of that well to hold onto power.
Iran has been threatening to block the oil shipment lane in the gulf. Israel and the US has warned them not to.
In WW2 we put sanctions on Japan. The following is what happened.
The Empire of Japan entered World War II by launching a surprise offensive which opened with the attack on Pearl Harbor at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time (18:18 GMT) on December 7th, 1941. Over the course of seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.[1] The strategic goals of the offensive were to cripple the U.S. Pacific fleet, capture oil fields in the Dutch East Indies, and expand the outer reaches of the Japanese Empire to create a formidable defensive perimeter around newly acquired territory.[2]
I do not think Iran is like Japan. I'm looking at history on sanctions and what can happen. If I could tell the future, I would know what to buy in the stock market.