The Trump administration’s foreign policy decisions have thrust the United States into another armed conflict with a hostile foreign nation that happens to have significant amounts of oil. However, where the operation in Venezuela took less than three hours, the current war on Iran is rapidly turning into a long-term military engagement, with no clear war aims and no evident win condition for the United States despite rising death tolls and serious infrastructure damage not only for Iran but also for the United States, NATO allies, and other Middle Eastern nations. Let’s briefly discuss the what, the why, and the future of the Iran war.
Operation Epic Fury
The attacks against Iran, known by the United States as Operation Epic Fury and by Israel as Operation Roaring Lion, began with a quite literal bang. A massive surprise wave of airstrikes, launched by both the United States and Israel, targeted military and government sites across Iran. This wave included a series of decapitation strikes aimed at assassinating key Iranian leaders, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Other strikes hit civilian infrastructure, including one Tomahawk missile that landed in a girls’ primary school, killing 170 civilians.
The U.S. Navy has also begun to deploy submarines into anti-ship warfare. The Iranian warship IRIS Dena was struck by a torpedo in international waters off the coast of Sri Lanka, an attack that Secretary of Defense Hegseth rapidly announced was the result of an American submarine. Several sources have reported that the Dena was returning from a multinational naval drill organized by India and was not armed for war, though this does not mean that sinking it constituted a war crime. As a hostile nation’s ship in international waters, the Dena was a legitimate military target. It was just one of many Iranian ships destroyed early in the war, with the U.S. reporting that at least 30 Iranian ships had been sunk over the first week of the conflict.
Iranian retaliation was swift, aggressive and wide-ranging. Within the first 24 hours, Iranian missiles had hit seven countries across the Middle East, largely targeting U.S. military bases but also hitting major civilian infrastructure. Dubai International Airport (hub of Emirates and the busiest airport on the planet in terms of international passengers) and the UAE’s largest port and oil export facility were targeted by Iranian drone attacks.
While American losses have been limited in comparison to those suffered by Iran, the U.S. military has not gone without losses. Time reported that 13 servicemembers from the American military had been killed in action during the conflict and approximately 200 have been injured. Three American F-15s have been shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses in a friendly fire incident, and there are also reports that Iranian anti-air fire has damaged an American F-35. If true, this would be the first known instance of an F-35 fighter jet being damaged by enemy fire. This last report is, however, poorly substantiated, so it’s unclear if Iranian attacks caused that damage.
Uncertain objectives
While the events of the war have been comparatively well documented, the objectives of the conflict are uncertain. The U.S. Central Command describes Operation Epic Fury as intending to “dismantle the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that pose an imminent threat.” The Trump administration’s press releases have consistently emphasized that the operation is aimed at destroying Iran’s capacity to wage war and its ability to build a nuclear bomb. It is worth noting that the U.S. had previously hit several Iranian nuclear sites during a targeted bombing campaign in June 2015, after which administration officials claimed that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back by at least a year.
The administration’s claims about Operation Epic Fury have been consistent, but President Trump’s statements about the war indicate a far wider range of aims. After the opening strikes, Trump announced that the Iranian people had been given an opportunity to revolt and take down their regime. Trump has also claimed that the war will continue until the U.S. manages to achieve peace in the Middle East, though both this claim and his emphasis on regime change have been walked back steadily as the war has dragged on. Where Trump has stopped advocating for regime change in Iran and seems to acknowledge that a public uprising is unlikely, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to advocate revolution, and this divide in aims may create a rift between the allies in the coming weeks.
Out with Khamenei, in with… Khamenei?
If the objective of the joint American/Israeli campaign was regime change, its effectiveness has been limited despite promising early signs. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, was killed in the opening minutes by an Israeli missile strike, with CIA intel leading Israeli missile strikes directly to Khamenei’s location. Numerous key figures in the Iranian government and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard were also killed in the first round of strikes, with Israeli intelligence reporting the deaths of seven key officials, including one of the Ayatollah’s key advisors.
While Ali Khamenei may be dead, the Iranian government remains firmly under control of the same Islamic regime as before. The Ayatollah’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has been selected to replace his father as the head of the Iranian state. There is some evidence that the senior Khamenei was uncertain about giving power to his son, but in his absence, Mojtaba was the clear choice of leader, and with much of his family dead from American and Israeli bombing campaigns, many predict him to be a strict hardliner on the current war, unlikely to bow to international pressure.
The junior Khamenei, however, has recently been difficult to find. The Wall Street Journal reports that Khamenei has not been heard from or seen since his selection as supreme leader, with press releases read by journalists and AI-generated social media profile photos. It’s unclear why exactly Mojtaba Khamenei has been so reclusive, though Trump administration leaders believe that he may have been wounded, or possibly even killed, in the airstrike campaign.
The Strait of Hormuz and oil prices
While this war may have begun as a decapitation effort to promote regime change, the main focus is now the Strait of Hormuz. This strait, with Iran to its north and the UAE and Oman to its south, is a vital hub of global trade, with nearly 150 ships sailing through it each day prior to the current conflict. The BBC has reported that 20 ships have been attacked off the Iranian coast since the start of the war, while the average daily number of ships passing through the strait has dropped from 150 to under 6. Oil prices have also skyrocketed to over $100, reaching prices not seen since 2022 during the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Re-opening the strait has now become a significant aim of the American war effort, with Trump pledging to use American naval ships to escort tankers through the strait. He has also called on American allies to send their own ships to the strait, though no concrete efforts have been made by other nations so far.
Prospects for peace
With the son of the assassinated Supreme Leader now in command of Iran, and with both Israel and the United States seemingly unwilling to commit to thorough negotiations, the odds of a peace deal coming to fruition soon are not high. However, in the last few days Trump appears to have shifted his view and become more tolerant of a potential peace deal. During a press conference on Mar. 24, he mentioned that the Iranians had given “a very big present” that had helped move him towards accepting a potential peace deal.
Despite this move, the two sides are still no closer to an actual deal. The American peace plan reportedly requires Iran to give up all its nuclear capabilities (both for civilian-grade power plants and nuclear weapons) and limit its ballistic missile program, while Iran demanded that the United States recognize its authority over the Strait of Hormuz and pay reparations for damages inflicted in the war. Israel, meanwhile, continues to push for extending the war. Israeli officials have said that Israel will need several more weeks to achieve their primary war aims, and that there are further military and governmental targets within Iran that they would like to eliminate.
With the inconsistency of President Trump’s own claims about the war, vacillating between sending additional forces to the region and declaring the war to be effectively over, it is hard to know exactly where the future leads. Productive talks appear unlikely, especially as Iran states that they have no intention to negotiate at this point and do not trust the American side to negotiate authentically. Peace, at this point, will most likely involve both parties making some concessions; the real challenge will be forcing American, Israeli, and Iranian leadership to accept concessions.