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.

Content warning: This article contains descriptions of violence and mentions of anti-Semitism.

Origins
This is the second article published in The Monitor about the Israel-Hamas war (2023-present). The first was written by Alee Dickey and is available on The Hilltop Monitor’s website or in last semester’s Issue 7 print edition. Dickey does an excellent job of explaining Israel’s rise to statehood. It does not, however, address the rise of Hamas – the other main agent in this conflict. This article will examine the rise of Hamas and its involvement in Palestine.

Maps are critical to understanding this conflict, and this article would not be complete without one. The Monitor has created such a map for this article. For the cartography connoisseurs who are not satisfied with just one map, here are multiple other maps from other news outlets on the subject.

Jewish involvement in Palestine dates from between eighty to three thousand years ago. We have to start somewhere, though, so the scope of this article begins in 1967  with UN Security Council Resolution 242. The resolution came out of the Six-Day War between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. The details of the Six-Day War are beyond the scope of this article. In practice, the resolution demanded “termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force”. In part, if this resolution had been adopted, each state in the region would have maintained its recognized borders at that time. UNSCR 242 did not include a specific list of states, but the UN’s website implies that Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Israel would have been included.

This resolution was not legally binding, however. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), then the recognized government of Palestine, initially rejected Resolution 242. According to the PLO, Resolution 242 implied Israel’s “sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence,” which the PLO would not accept.

Later, though, the PLO became more open to input from the international community. In 1988, the PLO began talks with the US government shortly after the start of the First Intifada. Intifada is an Arabic word that literally means “shaking off [Israeli invasion],” although the term can also be used to generally refer to revolutions or revolts. Around this time a group now known by an acronym, Hamas (short for Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah, which translates to English as “Islamic Resistance Movement), split from the PLO. In 1993, the PLO signed the Oslo Accords, which, among other things, called for a two-state solution via “arrangements for a smooth and peaceful transfer of authority from the Israeli military government and its Civil Administration to the [PLO].” 

Overthrow
Hamas is not solely a military organization, as it has political aims and represents “one of the Palestinian territories’ two major political parties.” Given its Islamist origins, Hamas rejected the PLO’s vision of a secular state, claiming in its original manifesto that “we are unable to exchange the present or future Islamic Palestine with the secular idea.” Hamas called for the destruction of Israel as a state: “Our struggle against the Jews [will continue],” reads their 1988 manifesto, “until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised.” This anti-Semitic slant has caused multiple countries and regional entities to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Hamas updated its manifesto in 2017, stating that “its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.” Hamas does not define Zionism in this manifesto, however.

In 2006, Hamas won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections. On June 15, 2007, Hamas took complete control of Gaza with violence and by force. Hamas representatives announced via radio that “the past era has ended and will not return… The era of justice and Islamic rule have arrived.” Hamas has ruled in the Gaza Strip and West Bank ever since. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, “Palestinians have not voted for a legislature since 2006, nor a president since 2008.” For comparison, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was elected to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in 2009. He has been the Prime Minister from 2009-2021, and then again from 2022-present.

As of the time of writing, Israel has only declared war on Hamas. However, another entity must be understood for a full picture of the conflict: Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which backs Hamas.

Hezbollah claims direct involvement in the conflict: its leader, Syed Hassan Nasrallah, claimed in a Nov. 3, 2023 speech that “[t]he Islamic resistance in Lebanon started operation the very next day” after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Nasrallah further described the Oct. 7 attack as “a big event to shake this oppressive … occupying, usurping Zionist regime and its supporters in Washington and London.” Hamas has not explicitly accepted or rejected this labeling, though.

Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Israeli government represent the major players in this conflict.

Goals
Each side of the conflict has stated goals, which are briefly explained here.

Hamas, according to its 2017 manifesto, “believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.” It is willing to consider the 1967 borders as a possibility, though it rejects Israel as a state. Its stated goals involve destruction of the state of Israel, which it labels as “the Zionist project” and thus as an occupying power.

Israel’s goals are threefold. Israeli ministers have spoken about the war as a three-stage operation. The first stage – invading Gaza – has been ongoing since the Hamas attack on Israel in Oct. 2023 that killed approximately 1,200 people. According to AP reporting and the Gaza Health Ministry, as of Feb. 5, 2024, the Palestinian death toll as a result of the ongoing war is 27,478 people. 

Israel’s second stage, according to Netanyahu, is “to destroy Hamas’s governing and military capabilities and to bring the hostages home,” referring to the more than 200 hostages Hamas took in its initial attacks. More information about the hostages Hamas took will be published in part two of this series.

Israel also seeks to maintain security in Gaza. According to Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, “The third step [of the invasion] will be the creation of a new security regime in the Gaza Strip, the removal of Israel’s responsibility for day-to-day life in the Gaza Strip, and the creation of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel and the residents of the [area surrounding Gaza].” Gallant did not provide further details as to what this “security reality” meant.

Iran-backed Hezbollah supports Hamas. Its role in this conflict would likely be as a spoiler. Hezbollah has little involvement in this war so far, but its strategic location – to Israel’s north – would force Israel to fight on two fronts if Hezbollah were to invade.

This article serves as background for the Israel-Hamas war. In this series of articles, I will address the initial attacks, war crimes committed by both parties and the path to a sustainable peace. 

If there is something in this conflict you believe needs featuring or would like Mr. Naber to write about, please contact the Hilltop Monitor’s email address. He will respond to comments as he is able.