The US war against Iran: six months in and nothing to justify going to war thus far

An American historian was once asked to give a succinct judgement on the result of the Second World War. “Well”, he said, “it defeated the Nazis in Germany, the Fascists in Italy and the militarists in Japan – and never was the cause of justice more finely served”. If only it were that simple and straightforward. The Second World War is often seen as a just and necessary war, despite the appalling cost in human lives and destruction of cities, industries and infrastructure. It would have been intolerable for the Western democracies to live permanently under the shadow of Nazi totalitarianism with its constant threat to the security and independence of its neighbours and its readiness to exterminate whole ethnic or religious communities. The defeat of Hitler and Mussolini enabled democracy and open, liberal societies to be rebuilt in Europe and the Allied victory also paved the way for the project of the European Union to be launched within the framework of transatlantic security provided by NATO. The US turned its back on isolationism and agreed to lead a rules-based international order undergirded by new institutions of financial, economic and security cooperation such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the multitude of treaties, agencies and commissions emerging from the United Nations. So, by the usual depressing yardstick of warfare in human history, the Second World War at least left the world in a better state afterwards than before.

But there is of course no such thing as the perfect war. For every winner there is a loser. The US was not the only country that emerged from the war with its power and geopolitical outreach massively enhanced. Despite sustaining vastly greater destruction and human losses than the US, Stalin’s Soviet Union was able to gain control of most of Central and Eastern Europe, condemning its populations to live poor, grey lives under Communism for 40 years. For a while, at least, Communism as a global ideology was reinforced (alongside the US version of Capitalism) and after a brief attempt at cooperation with the founding of the United Nations, the wartime alliance against Germany and Japan soon descended into mutual rivalry and suspicion. The Cold War soon followed, imposing enormous financial costs on the democracies and forcing their populations to live under the Sword of Damocles of nuclear destruction. It was only when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, freeing the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe from their subjugation and removing the threat of nuclear war, that the effort and sacrifices of those who fought for freedom in the Second World War finally paid off.

This is perhaps a good reason not to rush into a premature judgment regarding the results of one war or another but to take a longer and wider perspective. In responding to a question about the significance of the French Revolution in the 1970s, nearly 200 years after the event, the Chinese Communist leader, Zhou Enlai, is reported to have quipped: “it’s too early to tell”. History twists and turns, sometimes in surprising ways. Some results of wars are immediate, others more long-term, making definitive judgments difficult and leaving plenty of room for revisionism and re-interpretation. These days, for instance, US scholars, looking at the greater political stability and fragile but emerging democratic structures in Iraq, do not see George W. Bush’s invasion of the country in 2003 in quite the same catastrophic terms as they did during the decade immediately afterwards. Perhaps one day Iran will be a robust democracy tied to the global economy with a purely civilian nuclear power programme and cooperating with Israel and the US to dismantle jihadist extremists across the Middle East. We should never say never. Perhaps too, scholars will attribute the transformation in Iran to the upheavals created by President Trump’s decision to launch an unprovoked war against the country last February. Mindful of past precedents, policymakers and diplomats should keep an open mind. But the historical pattern is that wars replace one set of problems with another. The destruction they cause is rarely “creative” in terms of leaving the world in a better state (even if scientific discoveries and innovative technologies emerge along the way) and they often go on long after any result that could possibly be achieved through fighting has long been attained. In World War II, 1945 was the year with the largest loss of life even though the outcome of the war had long been decided. Neither side was willing to compromise and accept anything less than absolute victory (as absurd a notion as this was for Nazi Germany at that stage of the war). At the same time, those launching wars must clarify why they have done so, state their objectives, explain convincingly why only war can achieve these objectives and accept to be constantly assessed on whether those objectives are truly being met or not. Actual results can then be measured against aspirations. Policymakers do not have a looking glass into the future to reassure them that despite what they are observing from one day to the next “all will be well in the end”. They can only go on the evidence supplied by the present and by the most realistic forecasts of the near-term future. So, by this standard, and six months in, was Trump’s decision to attack Iran last February remotely justified by the results thus far? Six parameters can guide our assessment.

1. Has Trump enhanced or undermined his political standing – at home and abroad?

Certainly, the President’s popularity has plummeted at home. Since the war began last February, his approval rating has dropped from 40 to 33%, one of the lowest for any US President, according to a Reuters/IPSOS poll. In recent days, a Financial Times poll has put it even lower. For many MAGA supporters, Trump has broken his two cardinal campaign promises: to reduce the cost of living for the average American and to keep the country out of foreign wars. Rising gas prices at the pump are something that Americans are particularly sensitive to. Only 31% of voters support the war. Afghanistan was hardly a popular cause with the US electorate either; but for most of the 20 years that US forces were engaged in Afghanistan, and despite their obvious problems in stabilising the country, public support never dropped below 50%. The war against Iran has certainly split the Republican Party with most members of Congress, like Trump supporters in general, sticking with the President but an increasing number openly expressing doubt and even dissent. Some joined the Democrats in seeking to invoke the War Powers Resolution to force the White House to consult Congress more closely on its war plans. The Senate passed a resolution in this sense even if the White House has ignored it. There have been numerous sackings of generals, both men and women, by the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. There have also been resignations of senior officials from the Pentagon, including the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, following the sacking of the Navy Secretary, and service chiefs expressing concerns about the impact that endless operations against Iran are having on the morale of service members and the readiness of the armed forces to fight wars against other potential adversaries in the future. The Republican Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Mike Rogers, has called on the White House to “end the churn”. What worries Republicans in Congress as well as the US public more widely is the President’s lack of a coherent strategy for ending the war and extricating the US military from the Persian Gulf. Trump swings almost daily from a willingness to negotiate with Tehran and even to make major concessions (such as lifting sanctions and unfreezing Iranian assets) to get a deal (and as reflected in the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreed last June) to threats to escalate military strikes and destroy Iran entirely (as reflected in the AI-generated video on Truth Social depicting the obliteration of Kharg Island). One moment the White House announces a shift from military operations to economic pressure on Iran through a blockade and a halt to all Iranian trade and commercial transactions (called “Operation Economic Outcast”). This has shifted the focus from the Pentagon to the Treasury Department with Scott Bessent in the lead to determine not only how to sanction Iran but also those countries that continue to trade with it (notably China and Russia). Yet a few days later the President swings back to military action, launching new waves of strikes against missile sites and communication centres operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as well as Iranian tankers. He announces that the US is in total control of the Strait of Hormuz, that Iran has been comprehensively defeated and has no military capability left and that there is no further point in negotiations with the Iranians as they cannot be trusted. So, if no deal is possible, but the adversary is no longer a threat, why continue the war? Trump certainly is enmeshed in his contradictions and flailing around in the hope that something will ultimately work for him. By continuing the war, he can try to convince Americans that all his various war objectives can still be achieved (from dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme to regime change). If he ends the war, then the lack of achievement is clear to all and set in stone. The gap between rhetoric and reality can no longer be disguised and the President’s authority as Commander in Chief will suffer an irreversible blow. So, we are in a face-saving trap: the war cannot continue but cannot end either.

This lack of strategy has undoubtedly discouraged European allies from giving more than cautious and limited support to Trump’s war effort. None has joined the US in striking Iran although France and the UK sent fighter jets and air defences to the Gulf states to protect them against Iranian missile counter-strikes. Only Israel, and on one occasion thus far Saudi Arabia, have targeted Iran. The Europeans have been mainly concerned to limit the damage to NATO as Trump has linked the presence of US forces in Europe to the support of allies for his campaign against Iran. The Pentagon has even sent a questionnaire to all the allies to determine their military capabilities and contribution to NATO; but the questionnaire also makes clear that allies are expected to align unconditionally with US foreign policy objectives (such as Iran) and to give Washington unrestricted use of US bases on their territory for US military operations beyond Europe and outside the NATO framework. The UK, Italy and Spain placed restrictions on such use at the beginning of the war with Spain taking the strongest stance. However, the restrictions were subsequently eased as allies wanted to avoid the Iranian war further accelerating previous US announcements regarding a drawdown in Europe. A European coalition of the willing, led by the UK, France and Germany, has also done some planning to deploy a maritime task force in the Strait of Hormuz to do demining and facilitate freedom of navigation once a permanent ceasefire between the US and Iran is in place. Yet overall, the Iran episode has been another wake-up call about the shaky future of the transatlantic security alliance. Europe was expected to give automatic support without being consulted in advance and having a voice in the discussion. The US is increasingly using NATO as an instrument of leverage or even bullying against its own allies (including in the trade field or to force Allies to leave the UN International Criminal Court and cease cooperation with it). And the US has used up in fighting Iran the Patriot air defence rockets and precision missiles that could have been better used defending Ukraine and protecting NATO against a more aggressive set of Russian hybrid warfare measures. So, and to the extent that successful leadership requires allies willing to follow, six months into the Iranian conflict the authority of the US as a coalition builder and operational commander has been severely weakened.

2. Has the war inflicted lasting damage on the global economy?

The Strait of Hormuz has now been closed for six months to normal commercial traffic, affecting one-fifth of global oil and natural gas supplies. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) and Iran differ as to how many tankers are running the gauntlet and able to pass through on any given day but it is clear that the number is a fraction of the pre-war traffic. The maritime monitoring agencies reckon 15-20, although CENTCOM recently claimed that it was able to escort 40 vessels in one day through the Strait carrying 18 million barrels of oil. Iran has continued to attack commercial vessels with missiles and drones in an attempt to disrupt this traffic. These strikes have pushed oil prices back upwards but, as some tankers are clearly getting through, not back to the level of $120+ per barrel that we witnessed in the early weeks of the war. The US continues to blame higher oil prices on the Iranian attacks, ignoring the obvious reality that before the war there was uninterrupted freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. In the meantime, and to avoid the Strait of Hormuz becoming a stranglehold on their oil exports, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been working on alternatives such as the building of new oil terminal ports downstream and new pipelines across land to the Gulf of Aden and the Suez Canal. But this infrastructure will take years to build and cost billions of dollars. It will also put more emphasis on international efforts to keep the Bab el-Mandeb Strait open at a time when the Houthis in Yemen are renewing their attempts to disrupt shipping and Somali pirates have re-emerged to seize ships for ransom.

The IMF has cut its growth forecast for the world economy twice since the war began. In January it was 3.3% and today at 3%, a significant but not dramatic fall. The Iran war has been a shock to the system, particularly in increasing energy prices and inflation in many industrial economies. But it has also shown that the global economy can absorb these shocks and is remarkably resilient. Countries and industries find workarounds. Moreover, they are today less energy-intensive than in the past and the digital economy driven by AI is taking over from heavy industry and goods production as the driver of higher productivity and growth. The oil crisis of 1973/4 when OPEC quadrupled the price per barrel had a greater impact on the world economy than Trump’s war against Iran thus far. Other events in 2026, like the hottest summer months on record, prolonged drought in many parts of the world, and the most severe El Niño weather pattern in 70 years, will probably have a bigger impact in depressing agricultural production and raising food prices this coming winter. Trump tariffs and ongoing US trade disputes with its principal economic partners (for instance, Canada and the EU) have also impacted global growth, although not as badly as many feared just a year ago. And there is also the fear of a stiff market correction in the wake of the AI investment bubble on Wall Street and the inflated valuations of the tech companies. Yet it is also true that given these other economic challenges, a war in the Persian Gulf weakening industrial economies already under stress from stagnant growth and rising levels of debt and unemployment was the last thing that we needed.

Yet if high-income countries somehow manage to pull through, the consequences will still be severe for lower-income countries in Africa and Asia, which will be denied fertiliser via the Strait of Hormuz and forced to import more expensive grain from abroad, notably from the US and Australia. In the industrial countries too, the new uncertainty regarding the supply of oil from the Persian Gulf has made some countries back away from commitments to de-carbonise their economies by mid-century and to look for sources of oil and gas closer to home. The UK Labour government, despite being in the lead internationally in efforts to cut emissions, has partially reversed course and is moving to give drilling licenses to develop two North Sea fossil fields, the Rosebank oilfield and the Jackdaw gas field. The US has been pressing to gain control of one-fifth of Venezuela’s oil reserves, at 300 billion barrels; the largest in the world, by having Venezuela give the rights to an obscure US-Venezuelan oil company (North American Blue Energy Partners) with the equity stake held by the Pentagon. Energy experts calculate that it would cost $10bn in investment to get Venezuela’s oil production back up to where it was in the 1990s. The Trump administration has also given Russia a temporary exemption from sanctions to ship more oil in an effort to stabilise markets but also dealing a blow to international efforts to support Ukraine and keep the pressure up on the Kremlin. The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, has even criticised Ukraine for attacking oil refineries and port loading bays in Russia and reducing Russia’s oil export capacity. So, ironically, at the moment when climate change is disrupting the global economy and putting health services under stress as never before, the impact of the Iran war will be to “drill baby drill” and develop new fossil fuel reserves, ultimately pumping billions of more tons of carbon into the atmosphere and pushing average temperatures way beyond the UN goal of 1.5 % of global warming.

So, if the Iran war is not the equivalent of the 1929 Wall Street crash in tipping the global economy into a devastating recession, it nonetheless will be a major setback to Europe’s efforts to revive economic growth and will deprive it of the resources and political energy to move towards a greener future. It is a classic example of responding to a crisis by taking actions that will make the crisis even worse, more complicated and harder to resolve.

3. Has Iran been defeated or is it close to defeat?

Testifying before Congress last May, the CENTCOM chief, Admiral Brad Cooper, said that the US had destroyed 16 Iranian naval vessels, disabled 82% of the country’s air defence and forced the Iranian air force to go from 400 sorties a day to zero. President Trump has reinforced this message that Iran’s pre-war military capability has been destroyed. Recent US strikes after a quiet month in August seem designed not only to punish Iran for attacking Gulf shipping but also to prevent it from reconstructing its air defence and missile batteries. Nonetheless, and despite the US claims, Iran has continued to strike commercial ships and has launched missile attacks against US bases in the region as well as against the Gulf states in retaliation for every US strike. Last March, Reuters reported a US intelligence assessment that the US air campaign had only destroyed one third of Iran’s considerable arsenal of drones and ballistic missiles, with a second third being “possible” but not able to determine with full confidence. Undoubtedly, Iran has retained a lot of underground production capacity and last week the Financial Times reported that Russia has been secretly helping Tehran with technology for supersonic missiles able to strike US warships in the Gulf. Iran has recently unveiled a new electro-optical missile which it calls the Qassem Basir. The current on again/off again nature of the conflict at low intensity means that Iran will retain enough capability to retaliate whenever it feels the need.

Arguably, the country has taken a bigger economic than military hit from the war thus far, which is why the White House is now shifting the focus to economic strangulation. In July, food inflation hit 128%, according to the Iran Statistical Center in Tehran. President Masoud Pezeshkian has said that foreign trade has declined by 35% since the US Navy imposed a blockade of Iranian ports, pushing the inflation rate up to 66% in July. During the weeks following the signing of the MOU with the US in June, Iran managed to export 90 million barrels of oil, giving it much-needed foreign exchange. But this figure has now fallen sharply. In his “Economic D-Day” speech, Scott Bessent announced US secondary sanctions on trade with Iran in gold, digital services, technology, aviation and maritime transport. But so far, the Treasury Department has been wary of imposing specific penalties. Apart from a bank in Hong Kong and the Golden Globe Bank in Türkiye, the main target has been the UAE branch of the Egyptian Banque Misr, which has been denied access to the US financial system. So, we must wait and see how far the US will go in imposing secondary sanctions on other countries and how many will be prepared to cooperate with the US and forgo the benefits that they obtain, clandestinely or more openly, from trading with Iran.

For the moment, it is an open question whether US military and economic pressure will be enough to force Tehran back to the negotiating table ready to accept whatever terms the US is willing to offer. Iran has been living under US and international sanctions since 1979. It has become adept at finding workarounds via shell companies, complicit banking networks, barter arrangements, greater use of cryptocurrencies and its own shadow fleet of oil tankers. It will continue efforts to redirect resources to domestic production and reduce its dependence on the dollar in international transactions. It is highly unlikely that Russia and China will abandon Tehran, particularly at a time when military cooperation and joint exercises among the three are increasing. China has important investments in Iranian natural gas fields and buys 90% of the country’s oil. At home, the war has brought an end to the anti-government protests that shook the regime at the end of last year. Bombed by the US and Israel, Iranians have rallied round the flag as the massive street demonstrations marking the funeral of the former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, showed. Consolidating its grip on power, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has also increased domestic surveillance and repression. The regime has lost many of its leaders but has shown resilience and the capacity to fill the gaps with a new generation of leaders fast.

So, Iranians are suffering, but with sufficient lifelines abroad, expect the country to limp along and survive for now. The Iranian regime will certainly believe that it has more staying power than Trump and can outlast him. The MOU also showed that Trump is prepared to make concessions himself, for instance on lifting sanctions and financing Iran’s reconstruction. So, although Vice President Vance said last week that Washington is not currently talking to Tehran and that it was up to Iran to end the war, the regime will hunker down and wait for the diplomacy to resume, possibly under the next US president.

4. Is the Middle East more or less stable?

The US has launched many military operations in the Middle East in the hope of solving all the problems of the region. In 1991, following the Desert Storm war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, President George H.W. Bush even proclaimed the birth of a “New World Order”. Inevitably, it proved to be a short-term concept. Saddam Hussein survived to continue to repress his people and even use gas against his Kurdish minority. Iran took advantage of the weakness of Iraq to assert its dominance over the region and to establish its proxies in Gaza and Lebanon. As the US drew down its forces post-‘Desert Storm’, Russia moved into the vacuum in Assad’s Syria and the Kurds, having escaped Saddam’s clutches, began to push for their own state. Israel, having been restrained by Washington despite absorbing Iraqi Scud missiles, became more assertive and autonomous in pursuing its own notion of its security interests.

Likewise, the US attack on Iran has hardly made the Middle East a safer place. The Houthis in Yemen have resumed their strikes on Israel and attempts to disrupt shipping in the Gulf of Aden. Furthermore, the Houthis have attacked four towns in southern Saudi Arabia and Saudi Aramco oil production facilities, prompting Saudi air strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, and bringing to an end the fragile ceasefire between the two neighbours. Israel has used the US diversion towards Iran to push deeper into Lebanon to establish its northern security zone. It has repeatedly violated the ceasefire in Gaza killing and wounding more Palestinian civilians and refused to accept the Stage 2 transition plan set out by Trump’s Board of Peace. Israel has also not reined in the increasingly violent and illegal activities of Israeli settlers in the West Bank to intimidate Palestinians and force them to leave their villages and their farms. Despite US criticism, Israel too has refused to withdraw its troops from new positions that it is occupying in southern Syria under the pretext of protecting the local Druze minority. Türkiye has struck bases in northern Syria, which it alleges were used by Kurdish forces. The Gulf states too have questioned the validity of US security guarantees in the wake of the inability of the US to protect them against Iranian missile strikes, which have severely damaged their oil and gas industry. Some like the UAE are trying to draw even closer to Washington while others are seeking a back channel with Tehran and defence arrangements with other security partners. Oman, for instance, has been working with Iran on the joint management of the Strait of Hormuz to the intense irritation of the White House. Saudi Arabia has been seeking a nuclear agreement with Washington, which worries Israel and other regional states in that it is not clear if it will allow Riyadh to process its own nuclear fuel processing capability. Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have concluded a new regional defence alliance to protect their interests without the US. Tensions between Ankara and Jerusalem are at an all-time high as Israel sees the influence of Türkiye increasing throughout the region. Other Middle Eastern states may well join the new alliance in the future. There are some brighter spots. Syria under its former jihadist President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is rejoining the international community and the US and Europe have lifted sanctions against it. The Syrian President was seen recently using his new VISA card to make a purchase, an indication that Syria is back in the Western financial system.

But overall, it is difficult to make the case that Trump’s war against Iran has opened new opportunities for peace and stability in the Middle East. Instead, regional rivalries have been exacerbated, confidence in the US has been shattered, and everywhere defence budgets are going up as the countries of the region seek more protection through armaments and military modernisation. More air and missile defence are the main priority as well as counter drone capabilities – an area where Ukraine has seen an opening. Ironically, US defence companies may be the beneficiaries of the security anxieties that the US government has created throughout the Middle East.

5. Has the Iranian nuclear programme been dismantled or significantly pushed back?

Here the answer seems to be ‘no’. Most of the damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was done a year before in June 2025 when the US and Israel jointly attacked the major Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz and Fordow using deep penetration bombs. Trump at the time proclaimed total success so it seems strange that halting Iran’s nuclear programme should be a core objective of the 2026 campaign. Facilities destroyed once cannot be more destroyed the second time around, and Iran could certainly not have reconstituted anything like a functioning nuclear programme in just 12 months.

In the present campaign Trump has emphasised the 440kg of enriched uranium (to 60%) that Tehran is thought to have accumulated after it resumed its enrichment activities in 2018, and after Trump in his first term, withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal between Iran and 6 international partners. This is the figure that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna has put into general circulation. In the past six months, there has been speculation that the US would launch a special forces operation to recover these 440 kg but in truth they could be dispersed over several sites and buried deep underground in facilities already destroyed by the US, making them virtually inaccessible. Trump has spoken of “nuclear dust”. The IAEA would be the best entity to go inside Iran and try to locate the enriched uranium as it has a decades-long history of monitoring the Iranian nuclear programme and a considerable archive of data. But it has not been allowed to return to Iran to resume its verification role. But there is one encouraging sign that the US, despite its emphasis on the use of force, has not abandoned diplomacy altogether. The US has worked with France, Germany and the UK on a joint resolution to report Iran to the UN Security Council for non-compliance with its transparency obligations regarding its nuclear activities. This resolution was supported by 23 of the 35 members of the IAEA Board and was transmitted to the Security Council for action on 9 September.

US intelligence believes that the various strikes have indeed set back the Iranian nuclear programme (and Tehran has always denied seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon); but it also has put the extra time required at only six months, claiming that Tehran could have a first set of nuclear bombs in just a year. This takes account of the widespread expertise in nuclear technology over many years and over 20 nuclear facilities in the country, which goes well beyond the killing of individual nuclear scientists and repeated sabotage operations by Israel and the US. The US strikes have been mainly against Iran’s ballistic missile programme and the infrastructure of the IRGC. Nuclear facilities (to the extent that any are left standing) do not seem to have been a priority. This could change in the future if Trump decides to order strikes against Pickaxe Mountain a location near Natanz where US and Israeli intelligence suspect Tehran of trying to build a new, more secure nuclear facility deep inside the mountain. Trump has repeatedly threatened to do so, but so far has stayed his hand.

In sum, the war thus far has not eliminated all possibility of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon in the future, particularly if the 440kg of enriched uranium somehow survived and is securely in the regime’s hands. Confidence about Iran’s denuclearisation can only be achieved through binding negotiations and arms control agreements subject to intrusive verification. In short, a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or something similar. But Trump’s unprovoked abrogation of the JCPOA in 2018 and decision to bomb Iran twice while he was actually negotiating with Iran over its nuclear activities has undermined trust in Tehran regarding Washington’s sincerity and reliability. Indeed, the attacks may have only increased Iran’s belief that, like North Korea, it needs nuclear weapons for its own self-protection. Washington may negotiate more seriously with an Iran possessing a proven nuclear capability than with an Iran having only a nuclear programme.

6. Is the US military fortified and better able to perform its global security and defence missions?

So far, the US has suffered 18 service members killed and 750 wounded since starting its war against Iran. The Congressional Research Service calculated last May that the US has lost 42 aircraft (through strikes and accidents). Its stocks of precision-guided munitions have been severely depleted. According to the Centre for International and Security Studies (CSIS), the campaign so far has used up 65% of US Patriot and 38% of THAAD air defence missiles. Ships and aircraft have been diverted from Europe and Asia for long deployments to the Gulf. This clearly has put a strain on the US Navy. The Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier spent more than a year deployed- the longest period since the Vietnam War. The media reported extensively on the plight of another carrier, the Abraham Lincoln, deployed at sea for over 200 days. Conditions onboard became progressively worse with toilets breaking down, food shortages and mental health issues among the crew. There were reports that some sailors tried to jump overboard. Finally, the Abraham Lincoln was sent to Thailand for repairs and shore leave to be replaced by the George Washington.

Yet beyond the wear and tear factor, and despite the Panglossian statements of Trump and Hegseth pretending that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, US service chiefs are clearly worried about the absence of an exit strategy. Military force should be used for precise objectives and only if force is actually useful and effective in achieving those objectives. But what the service chiefs are seeing is the White House ordering strike after strike against Iran, stopping and restarting the war, only for nothing to happen as a result and the US still to be in essentially the same situation the day after. The US Navy also seems stuck in an endless deployment to escort tankers up and down the Gulf because of the absence of a ceasefire with Iran. The US military’s role is to maintain minimal pressure on Iran for an indefinite period until the Administration can make up its mind what it wants to do and negotiate a new deal with the Iranians. The beneficiaries of all this are Russia and China, seeing the US use up precious and expensive military hardware in the Gulf and now imposing severe delays on deliveries of Patriots and other equipment to Ukraine, Europe and its allies in Asia, including Taiwan. As Washington squanders its military superiority on unnecessary, second-order conflicts, Moscow and Beijing see the geostrategic advantage moving in their favour. Certainly, the Iran war has caused rifts in the Atlantic alliance at precisely the wrong time as Trump looks to punish allies deemed insufficiently loyal. His latest tirade is against the UK over the Falkland Islands, which Javier Milei’s Argentina has now brought back onto the international agenda by trying to stop exploration for oil around the Falklands coastline. Trump indicated that this time round Washington might swing its support behind Buenos Aires rather than London and doubted whether the UK armed forces in their current shape could defend the islands.

Conclusion

Back in the Middle Ages, Saint Thomas Aquinas developed his celebrated theory of the Just War. He stressed the requirement for war to be a last resort, to be resorted to only after all peaceful and diplomatic means had been used to try to resolve the causes of conflict. Then came proportionality or the need to use only the minimal force required to achieve a given objective. Aquinas knew that war is inherently cruel and so he stressed that the evil it causes has to be less than the evil it ultimately removes. These principles are of course subject to a good deal of subjectivity and interpretation depending on which country you come from. As already mentioned, the peoples of Eastern Europe experienced the “benefits” of the Second World War in quite a different way from those of Western Europe. Being “liberated” by the Soviet Union was quite a different thing from being liberated by the US and the UK. To the victor the spoils, and Germans in the Weimar Republic after the First World War rankled at being shouldered with the responsibility for a catastrophe that they believed was the result of several countries making fatal miscalculations in the July crisis of 1914. Yet even with this margin of interpretation, Trump’s campaign against Iran does not meet any of the criteria for a just or justified war. Instead of regime change we have a more repressive regime, worse economic conditions for the Iranian people, an Iranian nuclear programme that still survives, less stability in the Middle East, Iran now having a stranglehold over one of the world’s most important commercial transit routes, less unity in NATO, a weaker US military, less vital equipment for Ukraine, a weaker global economy and more reliance on fossil fuels at the moment when climate change is hitting home, and finally Russia and China emerging stronger for no effort on their part. There do not seem to be any realistic US objectives in the war that could not have been secured better by negotiations and diplomacy, if the Administration had simply had a little more patience to lay out a strategy and (as with the JPCOA in 2018) build an international supporting coalition behind it. In the struggle for geopolitical leverage in the 21st century the West cannot afford any more unforced errors of this nature.

So, how does it all end?

Not any time soon, alas. Both sides seem willing to accept the continuation of the status quo sine die. They both believe they hold the stronger cards and that with just enough perseverance the other side will give in. Vice President JD Vance even says that it is not a war any longer. Just a skirmish. But few in the region will be convinced by this. Iran has glimpsed the strategic prize of gaining control of the Strait of Hormuz and having this recognised de facto by the US and the Gulf States. The US has to emerge with at least one uncontested and measurable accomplishment, preferably before the midterm elections in November. It won’t be regime change but perhaps something in the nuclear field, or the Strait of Hormuz or Tehran’s support for regional proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. Who will ultimately prevail? It’s hard to tell. But when it comes, it will probably be a pyrrhic victory for either side. So, watch this space and count the damage in the meantime.

The views expressed in this #CriticalThinking article reflect those of the author(s) and not of Friends of Europe.