Iran War-The State of Play

Now that the war in Iran is currently in a pause, it is useful to take a step back and look at what has actually happened. This war, like anything the U.S. does in the Middle East, creates a lot of noise and a lot of the punditry trying to spin whatever is happening into confirmation of their preexisting worldview. However, to fully understand the situation, one needs to look at this as part of the geopolitical chess board involving rivals. Currently, there are 3 great powers (the U.S., Russia, and China) with another emerging power, India. On part of this chessboard is Iran, a country that has been opposing U.S. influence in the Middle East for 2 generations. In terms of being an out and out enemy of the U.S. (as opposed to a rival like China & Russia with whom the U.S. has done business), only North Korea has been as implacable vis-à-vis the U.S. for longer. This is because Iran, like North Korea, is not only opposed to the U.S. on a rational geopolitical interest basis, but also on a deeply ideological basis, which makes doing a serious peace deal with them nearly impossible. For Russia and China, Iran has been a useful ally that can be used to frustrate U.S. designs in the Middle East, without directly implicate them. In addition, Iran exported their drone technology to Russia, something that has been most useful to Russian forces in Ukraine. In short, now that the U.S. has been engaged in significant combat operations against Iran, expect Russia and China to help Iran where they can. While these two powers won’t be sending ships to engage U.S. naval assets, nor will they be sending their air forces to get locked into dogfights with U.S. aircraft, they will likely continue using their satellite information to help Iran with targeting when combat resumes and will likely try and replenish Iranian stockpiles of missiles and drones during the current pause.

How Is The War Going?

Oil:

Depending on the media one consumes, the war is either going very well or very poorly from the perspective of the U.S. Many media are focusing on the price of oil/gas, how this is impacting the U.S. consumer, and the potential political fallout from this. There is also the question of damage to the oil infrastructure in the Middle East, both in U.S. allies (such as Saudia Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, etc) as well as in Iran itself. And then there is the ever present question of the Strait of Hormuz through which 20% of the world’s oil passes. Iran’s blockade of this chokepoint as well as fear has sent the price of oil up significantly, currently hovering between $90-$110 per barrel. To hear some tell it, the fact that the war has taken a couple of months (so far) and that Iran has blocked the strait is evidence of failure, Trump blundering, and poor planning.

However, at the current moment, there are a lot of factors that are pointing up from the U.S. perspective. First, the accusation of poor (or rushed) planning does not really hold water at all. Trump’s erratic personality aside, the U.S. has been planning, war-gaming, strategizing an attack on Iran since before many of the pundits currently writing were born. Every U.S. President for the last 40+ years has pledged to deal with Iran. Which means that the U.S. military has been putting together scenarios as to how an attack would come off for literally decades. There is no doubt that Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz was one of the factors that all of these plans took into consideration, as well as a forecasted impact on the oil price and the economic fallout on the U.S.

In many ways, from the U.S. perspective, this is one of the best times to attack Iran. Thirty years ago, the U.S. was much more dependent on oil imports from the Middle East. According to AI, it was about 10% of total imports in 2024-2025; a percentage that is certain to fall now that Venezuela is starting to ship oil to the U.S. And while the U.S. is still a net importer of crude oil, it is a net exporter of petroleum products overall, making it a much bigger player in the global energy market than it used to be. China, on the other hand,  sources about half of its oil consumption from the Middle East. A blockade of the strait, or serious damage to existing infrastructure, will be much more damaging to China than the U.S.

And finally, the fact that the counter-blockade of the strait by the U.S. puts time on the U.S. side, rather than Iran’s. Iran’s dependence on oil exports for its economy is well known. At this point, the U.S. has decided to not to destroy Karg Island, the primary conduit through which Iran exports its oil. However, Iran is running out of storage capacity as it is not able to export oil. Once its capacity is full, perhaps in weeks, it will have to start shutting down oil infrastructure, possibly creating permanent damage. In addition, the lack of oil revenue and sanctions is putting fiscal strain on the regime, likely putting the economy on pace to collapse if not rectified. Again, this is another factor putting time on to the side of the U.S., not Iran.

Battlefield Assessment:

On the battlefield, there seems little doubt that the U.S. and Israel are having great success. First, the U.S. has taken out dozens of leaders, not the least of which was the Supreme Leader himself. Part of the dissatisfaction of how the war is going is due to the fact that there appears to have been an expectation in some quarters that the death of the leader would bring about the fall of the regime. That view totally misunderstands how Iran is governed. Iran is not like a personality cult dictatorship such as Iraq under Saddam Hussein, North Korea under the Kim family, and Syria under Assad (and possibly Russia under Putin), where death of the ‘heroic’ leader will lead to a crisis in legitimacy. Iran is more like the Catholic Church where the death of one pope will be followed by the appointment another. In any case, the killing of the leadership has created some operational confusion the U.S. appears to have exploited. Even now, despite the naming of a Supreme Leader (who has been conspicuously invisible), it still is unclear who exactly is in charge in Iran; a factor that has made negotiations even more difficult than they already would be.

The second factor to consider is that the rate that Iran is launching missiles and drones has declined significantly from the first days of the war. This indicates, at the very least, that their supplies of these weapons are not unlimited and that they must ration them to remain active over a longer conflict window. It appears that they are in discussions with the Russians regarding importing drone which would enable to them to keep up a certain rate of fire against U.S. and allied assets in the region, as well as threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Whatever else it means, a lower rate of fire means a less effective enemy.

The third factor impacting the war is air power. While Iran had success knocking down a couple of U.S. aircraft, this is cold comfort as U.S. and Israeli air assets have been essentially flying at will over Iran and bombing anything worth bombing. For comparison, in Gulf War I in 1991 (a war that is viewed as one of the most one-sided wars in modern history), the coalition against Iraq lost 44 aircraft due to enemy fire (39 of which were fixed wing aircraft) in a war that lasted 42 days. Iran has apparently managed to knock out 2 combat aircraft in the first 35 days of combat operations. The constraining factor of the U.S. and Israel’s ability to systematically destroy Iran until the society ceases to function will be western political will and the supply of munitions. There is some indication that the U.S. and Israel may be depleting their reserves of munitions (which they are likely using the current pause to replenish). However, only time will tell if this turns out to be decisive.

The Strait of Hormuz

Despite the U.S./Israeli battlefield dominance, they key as to whether this war will be successful is whether Iran can be forced to open the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic. The simple fact is that an Iran that is able to control the strait is an Iran that is not defeated. Opening the strait essentially requires either the U.S. to take control of the Iranian side of the strait (and that means ground troops), or the Iranian regime to be overthrown and replaced with a government that is a more responsible international stakeholder. For those worried about another “forever war” like Iraq or Afghanistan, it should be remembered that those actions were essentially attempts to remake Islamic societies into western ones; a project that would have taken generations if it could have been successful at all. This occurred in part because the U.S. governments at the time felt it necessary to sell the fiction that the U.S. was on a benevolent mission of spreading democracy, rather than what was really happening, which was responding to a terror attack in one case and removing an unfriendly government in another. A long-term investment in society-altering activities does not appear to be on anyone’s stated agenda now. The current conflict appears to be an unapologetic geopolitical move, unlike anything we have seen from the U.S. in a long time. Seizing the strait would be the conquest of territory, 19^th century style, and it’s not impossible that such action might even end up long term with the displacement of the existing population. Regardless, it would be taking the territory and saying “This is ours now” and governing it.

The cost of such an operation would be enormous, but an Iran willing and able to shut down traffic would in some ways emerge from the war more powerful than before. While it is not clear that the U.S. has political will for such an operation, it is closer to having the political will than at any other time over the last 50 years.

How The War Ends

While pundits and observers are looking for a ceasefire/peace agreement. The truth is that this is a war that neither the U.S./Israel on one side, nor the Iranian regime on the other side can afford to lose. In some ways in resembles Ukraine in that neither Putin nor Zelensky can afford to lose, without losing power (and in the case of Putin, losing power likely means losing his life). By the same token, the Iranian regime (i.e. the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps) is fighting for its life (literally). Its demands that the U.S. pay compensation for all the damage the air campaign has caused and essentially leave the Middle East is essentially a declaration that it will fight to the death.

By the same token, an operation that concludes with an un-chastened Guard still in power in Iran makes the U.S. (not just Trump, but also the U.S. military) look less capable in that the U.S. will be seen to have thrown everything it had at Iran and Iran (specifically the Revolutionary Guard) was still standing at the end of it. The ability of the U.S. to coerce behavior in line with its interests will be irreparably damaged in ways that its semi-failure Iraq and total failure Afghanistan were not. In Iraq, although the U.S. didn’t end up with a western style democracy, Saddam Hussein’s government was no longer in power. And in Afghanistan, although the Taliban ultimately came back into power, we were not seen as having put everything we had into preventing that.

In wars of choice, often the side that ultimately wins is the side can’t afford to lose (where the other side decides that that cost of the war outweighs the benefit). In this case, neither side can really afford to lose. So, this war will likely go on until one side simply physically can’t anymore.