Dan SabbaghDefence and security editor
Tehran has not been bombed into submission, leaving America unable to enforce its demands without a ground war that it does not want
Has Iran won a war it didn’t start against the United States? It is not a victory in any conventional military sense: about 3,500 Iranians have been reported killed and the US-led bombing has caused anywhere between $150bn and $270bn of damage.
Yet Donald Trump’s decision to pause, rather than intensify, the 13-night summer bombing campaign in effect represents a degree of recognition that the US cannot achieve its stated goals by military power alone.
“Iran’s initial standard for victory was simply to survive,” said HA Hellyer, a Middle East expert with the Royal United Services Institute. “If anything, that’s been raised. The regime has demonstrated it is not going anywhere, and Tehran has changed the calculus on the strait of Hormuz”.
The past five months are a clear demonstration of how an asymmetric conflict can flip the tables. All Iran, helped by its extensive and mountainous geography, has needed to do is maintain enough of a missile and drone capability to scare merchant shipping from using the strait of Hormuz. It is a low bar Iran’s military is still clearing.
Two tankers were attacked sailing north of Oman last week. One of them caught fire in the engine room and had to be evacuated, before being towed to Oman, one of a handful of serious attacks on merchant shipping that took place during the nearly two-week July escalation of fighting.
The US, meanwhile, has spent at least $38bn and used more than 1,000 Tomahawk and 1,100 Jassm $2.6m cruise missiles, according to estimates by the CSIS thinktank, to bomb targets in Iran, a third and a quarter of total stockpiles. The Tomahawks, which cost up to $3.6m each, might not be replaced until 2031.
It is surprising that the US has allowed key munitions to be run down at such speed. On Monday, Trump tried in part to blame Ukraine, arguing that “so much was given” to Kyiv in military aid – though the reality is that Ukraine was never given long-range cruise missiles, only Patriot air defence systems.
Patriot missile interceptors were more heavily depleted, by 1,000 or so, or 50% of the total US stockpile, raising questions as to how well the US can continue to defend its bases in the Gulf. More were used during the 38 days of heavy fighting in the spring than the 600 or so that Ukraine has said it had received during four years of war.
A fresh escalation in the Red Sea by the Houthis, Iran’s allies in Yemen, complicates the picture further. The rebel group kept out of the first phase of the US-Iran war in the spring but, as Saudi Arabia seeks to redirect oil traffic through the Red Sea, they have stepped up attacks, targeting a refinery in the Saudi city of Jizan on Saturday.
The US’s stated central war aim, meanwhile, may have repeatedly shifted but it has always been maximalist – whether it was regime change (as demonstrated by the killing of Ali Khamenei), destroying Iran’s entire missile programme or, as most frequently stated, preventing the country from having a nuclear weapon.
Yet the US has no means of enforcing this level of demand without committing ground forces in numbers to occupy Tehran – an unlikely move that the US has not shown signs of preparing for. Donald Trump’s previous threats to bomb Iranian power plants to try to force the regime’s capitulation have raised concerns they would amount to war crimes, and he dropped them in April and again last week.
“I don’t think the Iranians can be bombed into accepting US terms,” said Peter Ricketts, a former UK national security adviser. “Until the US accepts it can’t get its way by bombing, Iran has effective leverage. Tehran can absorb the pain, and they know they can close the strait with the economic impact it has on the US.”
The resulting situation is what Ricketts calls an “escalation dominance” that he says favours Iran. Tehran, faced with US pressure to abandon its nuclear programme, can string out peace negotiations, wait for the White House to get impatient and restart bombing, then close Hormuz until the US has to stop attacking because the oil price is tto high for too long.
The question then becomes who gains as unstable equilibrium endures. Tehran may well believe it has leverage as the US heads towards midterm elections in November, given how unpopular the war is. Just a third of all Americans support the war, according to a rises to 71% of Republicans
Laurel Rapp, from the Chatham House thinktank, said that “a resumed ceasefire and promise of future talks is the least bad option for Washington” – though whether that is attractive to US ally Israel, whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has his own election to fight in October, is another
But if Tehran may have short or medium-term leverage, any idea that it has won the war is exaggerated. Hellyer argues that Iran, long struggling under western sanctions, cannot afford to rebuild without an agreement with the US: “Ultimately this isn’t sustainable for Iran, because its economy isn’t going to be able to survive”.
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