--- title: "Is the Iran War Even Winnable Anymore?" description: "It has been nearly seven weeks since America and Israel struck Iran with overwhelming force, decapitating the regime's leadership and hitting military infrastructure across the country. Since then, the war has been nothing if not a wild ride. The Strait of Hormuz has been closed. Gas fields in the Gulf have been hit by Iranian strikes. American assets have been destroyed, Gulf cities terrorized, southern Lebanon invaded, and Iran itself threatened by the president of the United States with the destruction of its very civilization.\n\nIn short, it has been a busy few weeks. Yet for all the fire and fury, for all the dead, the spiking oil prices, the performative threats on social media, it does not seem like any of the three main belligerents is any closer to actually winning the war.\n\nIran's government has been crippled and its military infrastructure flattened. Yet the regime is not only still standing but blockading the Strait of Hormuz. America seemingly has no exit plan, while Israel appears more interested in its side quest in Lebanon than in bringing the war to a conclusion. So now seems the perfect time to ask: is this war even winnable anymore? Is there any plausible outcome that Iran, America, or Israel could convincingly present to the world as a victory, and if so, what would winning actually look like to Tehran, Washington, or Jerusalem?\n\nThis is the central question of a conflict that has produced enormous destruction without delivering anything resembling a decisive result for anyone.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Nearly seven weeks of war by two of the world's most advanced militaries has left Iran battered but standing, with no belligerent in a position to credibly claim victory.\n- Iran's strategy is not to match American firepower but to outlast Washington's willingness to fight, making the war costly enough that a negotiated settlement looks preferable, especially with US midterm elections approaching.\n- America's own intelligence undercuts its stated goals: Iran's missile stockpile is reduced by only about half, hundreds to over a thousand fast boats survive, the proxy question is unresolved, and Iran still controls its highly enriched uranium.\n- Israel has scored undeniable tactical successes, including roughly 80% of Iran's air defenses destroyed and the assassinations of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his successor Ali Larijani, but its definition of victory keeps expanding to include regime change and the disarmament of Hezbollah.\n- With Iran tying any ceasefire to the Lebanon question and Israel pursuing ever-larger objectives, a clean win for any party is slipping further out of reach.\n\n## Clausewitz and the Meaning of Victory\n\nCarl von Clausewitz argued two centuries ago that the purpose of war was not merely to wreak havoc; it was to end up with a better deal than you had before the fighting started. By that measure, the war on Iran has so far failed to deliver a clear result to anyone. Iran has absorbed nearly fifty days of bombardment from two of the world's strongest and most advanced militaries and is still standing. It has been shaken, beaten, and battered, but the Islamic Republic is still kicking, and that alone has put Tehran in a position to potentially extract something real at the negotiating table.\n\nThat makes mere survival an incomplete benchmark. Tehran would doubtless sell survival as a victory, but Clausewitz does not quite capture the full picture here. For a regime that was staring down a genuine existential crisis before the bombs even started to fall, walking out of this alive is a win of sorts, even if it falls short of all-out victory. The harder question is whether any of the three belligerents can convert destruction into a durable advantage.\n\n## An Iranian Victory\n\nSurvival solves Tehran's most immediate problem, but it does little else. What could do more is the deal that eventually ends the war, and that is where the conversation shifts from whether Iran can merely survive to whether it can emerge in a stronger position than it entered. The path to getting there has never been about matching American firepower one for one. That was never happening. Instead, it is about outlasting America's willingness to keep fighting, making the war so costly and so disruptive that Washington decides a negotiated settlement is preferable to the alternative, especially with an upcoming midterm congressional election in view.\n\nTehran's 10-point plan offers a window into what the regime considers its optimal outcomes. Some of those points cross firmly into the category of things that are simply not going to happen, such as a complete withdrawal of all American forces from the Middle East. That demand earned the plan a swift delivery into the nearest trash can, in the words of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. But other points reveal genuine national priorities, and even toned-down versions of those priorities could be presented as an Iranian victory.\n\n### Escaping the Sanctions Cage\n\nFor decades, Tehran has thrown everything it has at escaping the sanctions architecture that has crushed its economy, hollowed out its currency, and locked it out of the international financial system. By and large, it has failed. The rial has been crashing for years, with hyperinflation setting into the economy, which was part of the underlying reason Iranians took to the streets back in January.\n\nEven partial sanctions relief coming out of this war would mean access to oil markets, restored banking relationships, and an easing of crippling pressure on the currency. This would almost certainly come with terms Iran would have to concede, ostensibly some combination of verifiable limits on its nuclear program and perhaps commitments on its missile capabilities. There is a certain irony in the fact that the nuclear question, which partially triggered this war in the first place, is the one whose final form remains hardest to predict. Whatever shape the final deal takes, if there is one, the surrounding terms could still hand Tehran a win it could plausibly take home.\n\n### A Toll on the Strait of Hormuz\n\nConsider the Strait of Hormuz. After decades of threatening to close it, Tehran has made good on its word and has repeatedly made clear that the days when vessels could sail through without issue are over. When the strait does eventually reopen, Iran is insisting on the right to charge a toll on vessels transiting the waterway.\n\nTo call this controversial would be an understatement, both with Iran's adversary in Washington and with the wider international community, precisely none of whom are looking forward to paying shakedowns for crossing a natural body of water. It would be an enormous concession for Washington to make, but if Trump caved, it would be one hell of a cash cow for the Islamic Republic, giving it a revenue stream that could help it evade future international sanctions.\n\n### Preserving the Axis of Resistance\n\nAnother consequential outcome, and perhaps the most realistic one, that Iran could extract from any final deal would be a nuclear-only approach that allows it to continue funding its proxy network throughout the region. The Axis of Resistance is badly wounded: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Syrian corridor gone completely. But Iran has built these networks before and would have every incentive to make sure they are built back stronger.\n\nTehran's 10-point plan demanded explicit protection for these groups, and a compromise that lands anywhere on the Iranian side would keep the architecture of Iranian regional power intact, directly undermining whatever the war took off the table in the short term. Whether Tehran actually pulls any of this off is still very much up in the air, and there are plenty of scenarios in which the ceasefire collapses and the fighting kicks off once again. But victory here was never going to be a single clean outcome. The Islamic Republic does not need to walk away with every line of its plan in hand. Each piece it can at least partially deliver tips the scales, and for a regime that went into this war facing an existential crisis, landing even a few of them would be enough to come out the other side better off than it went in.\n\n## An American Victory\n\nFor the United States, the question of victory is far harder to answer, not least because President Donald Trump has been so unclear about his country's military objectives. While Washington's shifting goalposts can be helpful in a political sense, making it easier to claim victory on the world stage, they are less helpful when America's achievements are analyzed in detail. If Washington introduces an objective, then moves away from it, then introduces another before moving away from that, and so on, then all of those objectives are fair to consider retroactively, on the assumption that at one point someone, somewhere in the White House seemed to believe in them.\n\nA useful starting point is the White House position as expressed on the first of April: \"From day one, the objectives have been clear: Obliterate Iran's missiles and production, annihilate its navy, sever its support for terrorist proxies, and ensure it never acquires a nuclear weapon.\" Leaving aside the claim that those objectives have been clear since day one, each can be evaluated in turn.\n\n### Missiles and Production\n\nThe US and Israel have destroyed a large share of Iran's missile production capacity. The country's missile stockpiles, however, are another matter. According to US and Israeli intelligence, after more than a month of aerial bombardment, Iran's missile stockpile has been reduced to roughly half its original size. That is a substantial achievement, but if Washington's goal was to \"obliterate Iran's missiles and production,\" then it has fallen short by the estimation of its own intelligence services.\n\n### The Iranian Navy and the Fast-Boat Problem\n\nAccording to Washington, and confirmed by open-source satellite imagery, Iran's pre-war navy has basically been wiped out, if we are only counting proper warships. Iran's frigates, corvettes, minesweepers, and other large vessels have been rendered a non-issue, and it is highly unlikely Iran could reconstitute its navy anytime soon.\n\nThe bigger problem is Iran's much larger fleet of skiffs and fast boats: small, agile speedboats that can harass naval vessels or, more importantly, cause chaos in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is estimated to have hundreds of fast boats left, if not over a thousand, and because they are so small, easy to conceal, and capable of operating at fairly long range, they are very hard to hunt down and eliminate. Those fast boats can lay mines, fire small arms or shoulder-fired missiles at trade vessels, or, in a worst-case scenario, board them outright. Whatever one decides to call this capability, it has not been dealt with.\n\n### Severing the Proxies\n\nIran's ability to support its terrorist proxies is an open question, and a straight answer may not come for quite a while. Publicly, Iran has not agreed to stop its support of Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthi rebels, or any of its other proxy allies. But its practical ability to support those groups will be contingent on whether it can get funds, weapons, and other assistance sent their way. The US is cracking down on Iranian offshore finance, a promising sign that Iran's funding streams could be interrupted, and under the current circumstances it will be much harder for Iran to smuggle weapons or other support through seas overrun with US warships. There is also a strong argument that Iran simply cannot support its proxies if it has no money, and it is far from clear it will have funds to spare by the time all is said and done.\n\n### The Nuclear Question\n\nOn Washington's goal to ensure Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, that prospect has been delayed but not completely dealt with. Iran's highly enriched uranium appears to have been buried underground for safekeeping, in tunnels that have since been sealed. That was Iran's attempt to ensure the US could not simply swoop in with elite special operators and make off with the material, since deeply buried uranium would require lots of time, troops, and heavy digging equipment to retrieve. But that also means Iran will need lots of time to recover the uranium in the future.\n\nIran's centrifuges have been destroyed, meaning Iran would have to build new ones to enrich its material further to weapons-grade, and it is not clear Iran could fashion that material into a bomb right now even if it wanted to. The critical point, though, is that the hardest task of all was getting its hands on highly enriched uranium in the first place. Even buried deep, that uranium remains under Iran's control.\n\n### The Objectives Washington Won't Acknowledge\n\nThen there are the previously stated or apparent objectives that Washington is now less willing to admit to. Iran's regime remains firmly in place, with no clear path to dislodge it. Regime change has technically been achieved, but only in the sense that the US has succeeded in shifting power to a faction far more hardline than the old leadership ever was; today Iran is on the verge of being co-opted by a fully fledged military dictatorship. The Iranian people have yet to revolt, and that opportunity appears to have been lost, at least in the short term. And the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, when it was wide open before the US and Israel initiated this conflict. Whatever an American victory looks like, it is clear the United States is not there yet, and while it may still achieve its goals in the coming weeks, the possibility of a clear win seems to be slipping away.\n\n## An Israeli Victory\n\nOn the 31st of March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that while Iran remained a threat to Israel, it was not an existential threat. That distinction matters, because Tehran being an existential threat is what had driven Jerusalem to fight this most recent war, and the 12-day war in June of last year. After that earlier conflict, Netanyahu held a press conference announcing that Israel had eliminated two immediate existential threats and declaring a historic victory that would stand for generations. The two threats were Iran's nuclear production capabilities, significantly degraded by the destruction of the main enrichment facility at Natanz, the uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, and the heavy-water installation at Arak; and Tehran's senior military command, which, while not completely devastated, had lost several senior figures, including three chiefs of staff.\n\nBy those same metrics, this war has handed Israel some undeniable victories. Joint US-Israeli strikes have destroyed approximately 80% of Iran's air defense systems and damaged a substantial portion of the country's ballistic missile infrastructure. According to General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nearly 80% of Iran's nuclear industrial base was hit, further degrading Tehran's drive for a nuclear weapon.\n\n### Decapitating the Leadership\n\nIsrael also successfully eliminated critical figures in Iran's leadership structure. The assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war represented a spectacular intelligence success, killing the man who had been a thorn in Israel's side for close to four decades. Nearly three weeks later, Israel killed Ali Larijani, who had become the most powerful figure in Tehran after Khamenei's death. Larijani's assassination removed one of the few Iranian officials capable of managing both military operations and diplomatic channels simultaneously. These were not the only leaders eliminated; Israel's targeted assassinations have deprived Tehran of some of its best and brightest during what has quickly become an existential war for the Islamic Republic.\n\n### The Larger Objective That Eluded Israel\n\nYet these achievements, however significant, do not represent the full scope of what Israel had hoped to accomplish. The military degradation and leadership decapitation were always intended as tools toward a larger objective, not ends in themselves. Mossad chief David Barnea made this clear during a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in mid-April, stating publicly that Israel's campaign against Iran would be considered complete only with the fall of the regime: \"Our commitment will be fulfilled only when this extreme regime is replaced. A regime that seeks our destruction must cease to exist.\"\n\nThis matters because, according to the New York Times, Barnea had presented Netanyahu with an assessment that the Mossad could galvanize the Iranian opposition and ignite riots capable of collapsing Iran's government. The plan rested on the belief that if Israeli and American forces could decapitate the leadership and destroy the regime's repressive apparatus, the Mossad and CIA could facilitate a domestic uprising that would install a new government in Tehran.\n\nIt did not happen. Public protests failed to materialize due to a combination of Iran's brutal repression of the previous protests, public anger at the US and Israel for killing civilians in their strikes, and the population rallying around the flag. And if Israel's spy chief is publicly insisting the war will not end without regime change, then this could drag on for a long time. According to Reuters, US intelligence indicated that Iran's leadership was still largely intact and not at risk of collapse anytime soon. That assessment came two weeks into the war, and in the time since, while the US and Israel have taken out more of Iran's leaders, the regime has had time to adapt and consolidate power under new leadership structures that appear determined to survive.\n\n### The Lebanon Complication\n\nThen there is Lebanon, where Israel has been waging a parallel war against Hezbollah that will complicate any Israeli declaration of victory. Iran has linked any ceasefire agreement to a resolution of the Lebanon situation, conditioning its agreement to end the war on a cessation of Israeli operations against Hezbollah. This has created a diplomatic tangle. Even after the April 8th ceasefire between the United States and Iran, Israel launched Operation Eternal Darkness, striking over 100 Hezbollah targets within ten minutes and killing more than 350 people.\n\nIsrael's position is that Hezbollah, as Iran's most powerful proxy, must be dismantled for any lasting security arrangement to hold. The Lebanese government has attempted to ban Hezbollah's military activities, but the group retains extensive weaponry and support in Shia communities. From Jerusalem's perspective, allowing Hezbollah to remain armed and operational would leave a potent Iranian capability on Israel's northern border even if Tehran's direct military threat has been degraded.\n\n### A Definition of Victory That Keeps Expanding\n\nThis creates a situation where Israel's definition of victory continues to expand. The initial goal of eliminating Iran's nuclear threat has grown to include regime change in Tehran and the disarmament of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Each of these objectives on its own represents a massive undertaking. Achieving all of them simultaneously may prove impossible, particularly given the international pressure mounting on Israel to halt its operations in Lebanon. A true victory from Israel's point of view may be a long way off, but that does not seem likely to deter Jerusalem from pursuing its objectives.\n\n## Why No One Is Winning\n\nStep back and a pattern emerges across all three belligerents. Each has inflicted real, measurable damage. Each has also fallen short of the goals it set for itself, and in several cases the war has actively undermined those goals. Iran survives but remains under blockade and sanctions. America has degraded Iran's military without securing an exit, a reopened strait, or the regime change its actions implied. Israel has decapitated Iran's leadership and gutted its air defenses, yet the regime it set out to topple has consolidated rather than collapsed.\n\nThe deeper problem is that victory for each side is defined in ways that the others can deny. Iran wins by outlasting and extracting concessions; Washington and Jerusalem win only by forcing outcomes the Iranian regime is structurally built to resist. With Iran tying a ceasefire to Lebanon, Israel expanding its aims, and Washington's objectives shifting by the week, the war has settled into a contest of endurance rather than a march toward any decisive conclusion. On the current trajectory, the most likely outcome is not a clean victory for anyone but a protracted, unstable stalemate punctuated by the constant risk that the ceasefire collapses and the fighting resumes.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What is Iran's strategy for coming out ahead in the war?\n\nIran's strategy was never to match American firepower one for one. Instead it aims to outlast Washington's willingness to fight, making the war costly and disruptive enough that a negotiated settlement becomes preferable — a calculation sharpened by approaching US midterm congressional elections. Its 10-point plan signals its key priorities: sanctions relief, a toll on Strait of Hormuz traffic, and protection for its proxy network across the region.\n\n### Did the United States achieve its stated military objectives?\n\nNot fully. By the estimate of its own intelligence services, Iran's missile stockpile has been cut to only about half its original size, its fleet of hundreds to over a thousand fast boats survives, the proxy-funding question remains unresolved, and although centrifuges were destroyed, Iran still controls its deeply buried highly enriched uranium. The regime also remains in place and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.\n\n### Who in Iran's leadership did Israel assassinate, and what did those kills achieve?\n\nIsrael assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war, then killed Ali Larijani nearly three weeks later. Larijani had become the most powerful figure in Tehran after Khamenei's death and was one of the few officials able to manage both military operations and diplomatic channels simultaneously. Despite these spectacular intelligence successes, the broader goal of triggering a domestic uprising failed: the Iranian population rallied around the flag rather than revolting, and US intelligence assessed the regime was not at risk of imminent collapse.\n\n### Why didn't the Iranian population rise up against the regime?\n\nThe Mossad had assessed it could galvanize the opposition and ignite riots capable of toppling the government once the leadership was decapitated. The uprising never came, due to a combination of Iran's brutal repression of earlier protests, public anger at the US and Israel for killing civilians in their strikes, and a rally-around-the-flag effect among the Iranian public. US intelligence confirmed two weeks into the war that the regime was largely intact and adapting under new leadership structures.\n\n### Why does Lebanon complicate any path to an Israeli victory?\n\nIran has tied any ceasefire to a resolution of the Lebanon situation, conditioning the war's end on Israel halting operations against Hezbollah. Yet Israel insists Hezbollah must be dismantled for any lasting security arrangement, and even after the April 8th US-Iran ceasefire Israel launched Operation Eternal Darkness, striking over 100 Hezbollah targets within ten minutes and killing more than 350 people. This has produced a diplomatic deadlock in which Israel's definition of victory keeps expanding while a negotiated end to the fighting grows more remote.\n\n## Sources\n\n1. https://archive.is/HS2MR\n2. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carney-israel-lebanon-9.7148800\n3. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/us/politics/iran-israel-trump-netanyahu-mossad.html\n4. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-892978\n5. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-trump-and-hegseths-claims-of-u-s-victory-in-the-iran-war\n6. https://warontherocks.com/tactical-success-strategic-failure-washington-walks-the-path-to-defeat-in-iran/\n7. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1krpjr91v2o\n8. https://www.csis.org/analysis/who-winning-iran-war\n9. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/iran-land-war-illusion\n10. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/us/politics/trump-goals-iran-war.html\n11. https://thebulletin.org/2026/03/analysis-iran-likely-transferred-highly-enriched-uranium-to-isfahan-before-the-june-strikes/\n12. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2026/04/iran-nuclear-programme-set-back-not-wiped-out\n13. https://www.csis.org/analysis/options-united-states-resolve-iran-nuclear-challenge\n14. https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-lose-navy-10-days\n15. https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-navy-destroy-irgc-artesh-us/33703825.html\n16. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/world/middleeast/iran-ships-strait-hormuz-blockade.html\n17. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-says-iranian-fast-attack-ships-that-come-close-us-blockade-will-be-2026-04-13/\n18. https://www.stimson.org/2026/after-khamenei-regional-reckoning-and-the-future-of-irans-proxy-networks/\n19. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/what-iranian-proxies-agreement-should-encompass\n20. https://time.com/article/2026/04/08/we-asked-3-experts-where-the-iran-war-goes-from-here/\n21. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/how-much-has-the-war-in-iran-depleted-the-us-missile-supply\n22. https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/iran/2026-04-11/ty-article/report-iran-has-thousands-of-ballistic-missiles-u-s-intelligence-estimates/0000019d-7bff-d68a-a39d-7bff7dfd0000\n23. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-can-only-confirm-about-third-irans-missile-arsenal-destroyed-sources-say-2026-03-27/\n24. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/us/politics/iran-missiles-launchers.html\n25. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/us/politics/trump-iran-goals.html\n\n" url: https://warfronts.pub/article/is-the-iran-war-even-winnable-anymore.md canonical: https://warfronts.pub/article/is-the-iran-war-even-winnable-anymore datePublished: 2026-06-02 dateModified: 2026-06-02 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://warfronts.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: Warfronts image: "https://media.warfronts.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/2TMpuUtqK3U/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 82f64a19fc579725dd66fe75f7f9f528ad32d4b2d93ae39bdb5b1f72f037372a tokens: 6499 summaryUrl: https://warfronts.pub/article/is-the-iran-war-even-winnable-anymore.md.summary.md --- It has been nearly seven weeks since America and Israel struck Iran with overwhelming force, decapitating the regime's leadership and hitting military infrastructure across the country. Since then, the war has been nothing if not a wild ride. The Strait of Hormuz has been closed. Gas fields in the Gulf have been hit by Iranian strikes. American assets have been destroyed, Gulf cities terrorized, southern Lebanon invaded, and Iran itself threatened by the president of the United States with the destruction of its very civilization. In short, it has been a busy few weeks. Yet for all the fire and fury, for all the dead, the spiking oil prices, the performative threats on social media, it does not seem like any of the three main belligerents is any closer to actually winning the war. Iran's government has been crippled and its military infrastructure flattened. Yet the regime is not only still standing but blockading the Strait of Hormuz. America seemingly has no exit plan, while Israel appears more interested in its side quest in Lebanon than in bringing the war to a conclusion. So now seems the perfect time to ask: is this war even winnable anymore? Is there any plausible outcome that Iran, America, or Israel could convincingly present to the world as a victory, and if so, what would winning actually look like to Tehran, Washington, or Jerusalem? This is the central question of a conflict that has produced enormous destruction without delivering anything resembling a decisive result for anyone. ## Key Takeaways - Nearly seven weeks of war by two of the world's most advanced militaries has left Iran battered but standing, with no belligerent in a position to credibly claim victory. - Iran's strategy is not to match American firepower but to outlast Washington's willingness to fight, making the war costly enough that a negotiated settlement looks preferable, especially with US midterm elections approaching. - America's own intelligence undercuts its stated goals: Iran's missile stockpile is reduced by only about half, hundreds to over a thousand fast boats survive, the proxy question is unresolved, and Iran still controls its highly enriched uranium. - Israel has scored undeniable tactical successes, including roughly 80% of Iran's air defenses destroyed and the assassinations of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his successor Ali Larijani, but its definition of victory keeps expanding to include regime change and the disarmament of Hezbollah. - With Iran tying any ceasefire to the Lebanon question and Israel pursuing ever-larger objectives, a clean win for any party is slipping further out of reach. ## Clausewitz and the Meaning of Victory Carl von Clausewitz argued two centuries ago that the purpose of war was not merely to wreak havoc; it was to end up with a better deal than you had before the fighting started. By that measure, the war on Iran has so far failed to deliver a clear result to anyone. Iran has absorbed nearly fifty days of bombardment from two of the world's strongest and most advanced militaries and is still standing. It has been shaken, beaten, and battered, but the Islamic Republic is still kicking, and that alone has put Tehran in a position to potentially extract something real at the negotiating table. That makes mere survival an incomplete benchmark. Tehran would doubtless sell survival as a victory, but Clausewitz does not quite capture the full picture here. For a regime that was staring down a genuine existential crisis before the bombs even started to fall, walking out of this alive is a win of sorts, even if it falls short of all-out victory. The harder question is whether any of the three belligerents can convert destruction into a durable advantage. ## An Iranian Victory Survival solves Tehran's most immediate problem, but it does little else. What could do more is the deal that eventually ends the war, and that is where the conversation shifts from whether Iran can merely survive to whether it can emerge in a stronger position than it entered. The path to getting there has never been about matching American firepower one for one. That was never happening. Instead, it is about outlasting America's willingness to keep fighting, making the war so costly and so disruptive that Washington decides a negotiated settlement is preferable to the alternative, especially with an upcoming midterm congressional election in view. Tehran's 10-point plan offers a window into what the regime considers its optimal outcomes. Some of those points cross firmly into the category of things that are simply not going to happen, such as a complete withdrawal of all American forces from the Middle East. That demand earned the plan a swift delivery into the nearest trash can, in the words of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. But other points reveal genuine national priorities, and even toned-down versions of those priorities could be presented as an Iranian victory. ### Escaping the Sanctions Cage For decades, Tehran has thrown everything it has at escaping the sanctions architecture that has crushed its economy, hollowed out its currency, and locked it out of the international financial system. By and large, it has failed. The rial has been crashing for years, with hyperinflation setting into the economy, which was part of the underlying reason Iranians took to the streets back in January. Even partial sanctions relief coming out of this war would mean access to oil markets, restored banking relationships, and an easing of crippling pressure on the currency. This would almost certainly come with terms Iran would have to concede, ostensibly some combination of verifiable limits on its nuclear program and perhaps commitments on its missile capabilities. There is a certain irony in the fact that the nuclear question, which partially triggered this war in the first place, is the one whose final form remains hardest to predict. Whatever shape the final deal takes, if there is one, the surrounding terms could still hand Tehran a win it could plausibly take home. ### A Toll on the Strait of Hormuz Consider the Strait of Hormuz. After decades of threatening to close it, Tehran has made good on its word and has repeatedly made clear that the days when vessels could sail through without issue are over. When the strait does eventually reopen, Iran is insisting on the right to charge a toll on vessels transiting the waterway. To call this controversial would be an understatement, both with Iran's adversary in Washington and with the wider international community, precisely none of whom are looking forward to paying shakedowns for crossing a natural body of water. It would be an enormous concession for Washington to make, but if Trump caved, it would be one hell of a cash cow for the Islamic Republic, giving it a revenue stream that could help it evade future international sanctions. ### Preserving the Axis of Resistance Another consequential outcome, and perhaps the most realistic one, that Iran could extract from any final deal would be a nuclear-only approach that allows it to continue funding its proxy network throughout the region. The Axis of Resistance is badly wounded: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Syrian corridor gone completely. But Iran has built these networks before and would have every incentive to make sure they are built back stronger. Tehran's 10-point plan demanded explicit protection for these groups, and a compromise that lands anywhere on the Iranian side would keep the architecture of Iranian regional power intact, directly undermining whatever the war took off the table in the short term. Whether Tehran actually pulls any of this off is still very much up in the air, and there are plenty of scenarios in which the ceasefire collapses and the fighting kicks off once again. But victory here was never going to be a single clean outcome. The Islamic Republic does not need to walk away with every line of its plan in hand. Each piece it can at least partially deliver tips the scales, and for a regime that went into this war facing an existential crisis, landing even a few of them would be enough to come out the other side better off than it went in. ## An American Victory For the United States, the question of victory is far harder to answer, not least because President Donald Trump has been so unclear about his country's military objectives. While Washington's shifting goalposts can be helpful in a political sense, making it easier to claim victory on the world stage, they are less helpful when America's achievements are analyzed in detail. If Washington introduces an objective, then moves away from it, then introduces another before moving away from that, and so on, then all of those objectives are fair to consider retroactively, on the assumption that at one point someone, somewhere in the White House seemed to believe in them. A useful starting point is the White House position as expressed on the first of April: "From day one, the objectives have been clear: Obliterate Iran's missiles and production, annihilate its navy, sever its support for terrorist proxies, and ensure it never acquires a nuclear weapon." Leaving aside the claim that those objectives have been clear since day one, each can be evaluated in turn. ### Missiles and Production The US and Israel have destroyed a large share of Iran's missile production capacity. The country's missile stockpiles, however, are another matter. According to US and Israeli intelligence, after more than a month of aerial bombardment, Iran's missile stockpile has been reduced to roughly half its original size. That is a substantial achievement, but if Washington's goal was to "obliterate Iran's missiles and production," then it has fallen short by the estimation of its own intelligence services. ### The Iranian Navy and the Fast-Boat Problem According to Washington, and confirmed by open-source satellite imagery, Iran's pre-war navy has basically been wiped out, if we are only counting proper warships. Iran's frigates, corvettes, minesweepers, and other large vessels have been rendered a non-issue, and it is highly unlikely Iran could reconstitute its navy anytime soon. The bigger problem is Iran's much larger fleet of skiffs and fast boats: small, agile speedboats that can harass naval vessels or, more importantly, cause chaos in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is estimated to have hundreds of fast boats left, if not over a thousand, and because they are so small, easy to conceal, and capable of operating at fairly long range, they are very hard to hunt down and eliminate. Those fast boats can lay mines, fire small arms or shoulder-fired missiles at trade vessels, or, in a worst-case scenario, board them outright. Whatever one decides to call this capability, it has not been dealt with. ### Severing the Proxies Iran's ability to support its terrorist proxies is an open question, and a straight answer may not come for quite a while. Publicly, Iran has not agreed to stop its support of Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthi rebels, or any of its other proxy allies. But its practical ability to support those groups will be contingent on whether it can get funds, weapons, and other assistance sent their way. The US is cracking down on Iranian offshore finance, a promising sign that Iran's funding streams could be interrupted, and under the current circumstances it will be much harder for Iran to smuggle weapons or other support through seas overrun with US warships. There is also a strong argument that Iran simply cannot support its proxies if it has no money, and it is far from clear it will have funds to spare by the time all is said and done. ### The Nuclear Question On Washington's goal to ensure Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, that prospect has been delayed but not completely dealt with. Iran's highly enriched uranium appears to have been buried underground for safekeeping, in tunnels that have since been sealed. That was Iran's attempt to ensure the US could not simply swoop in with elite special operators and make off with the material, since deeply buried uranium would require lots of time, troops, and heavy digging equipment to retrieve. But that also means Iran will need lots of time to recover the uranium in the future. Iran's centrifuges have been destroyed, meaning Iran would have to build new ones to enrich its material further to weapons-grade, and it is not clear Iran could fashion that material into a bomb right now even if it wanted to. The critical point, though, is that the hardest task of all was getting its hands on highly enriched uranium in the first place. Even buried deep, that uranium remains under Iran's control. ### The Objectives Washington Won't Acknowledge Then there are the previously stated or apparent objectives that Washington is now less willing to admit to. Iran's regime remains firmly in place, with no clear path to dislodge it. Regime change has technically been achieved, but only in the sense that the US has succeeded in shifting power to a faction far more hardline than the old leadership ever was; today Iran is on the verge of being co-opted by a fully fledged military dictatorship. The Iranian people have yet to revolt, and that opportunity appears to have been lost, at least in the short term. And the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, when it was wide open before the US and Israel initiated this conflict. Whatever an American victory looks like, it is clear the United States is not there yet, and while it may still achieve its goals in the coming weeks, the possibility of a clear win seems to be slipping away. ## An Israeli Victory On the 31st of March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that while Iran remained a threat to Israel, it was not an existential threat. That distinction matters, because Tehran being an existential threat is what had driven Jerusalem to fight this most recent war, and the 12-day war in June of last year. After that earlier conflict, Netanyahu held a press conference announcing that Israel had eliminated two immediate existential threats and declaring a historic victory that would stand for generations. The two threats were Iran's nuclear production capabilities, significantly degraded by the destruction of the main enrichment facility at Natanz, the uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, and the heavy-water installation at Arak; and Tehran's senior military command, which, while not completely devastated, had lost several senior figures, including three chiefs of staff. By those same metrics, this war has handed Israel some undeniable victories. Joint US-Israeli strikes have destroyed approximately 80% of Iran's air defense systems and damaged a substantial portion of the country's ballistic missile infrastructure. According to General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nearly 80% of Iran's nuclear industrial base was hit, further degrading Tehran's drive for a nuclear weapon. ### Decapitating the Leadership Israel also successfully eliminated critical figures in Iran's leadership structure. The assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war represented a spectacular intelligence success, killing the man who had been a thorn in Israel's side for close to four decades. Nearly three weeks later, Israel killed Ali Larijani, who had become the most powerful figure in Tehran after Khamenei's death. Larijani's assassination removed one of the few Iranian officials capable of managing both military operations and diplomatic channels simultaneously. These were not the only leaders eliminated; Israel's targeted assassinations have deprived Tehran of some of its best and brightest during what has quickly become an existential war for the Islamic Republic. ### The Larger Objective That Eluded Israel Yet these achievements, however significant, do not represent the full scope of what Israel had hoped to accomplish. The military degradation and leadership decapitation were always intended as tools toward a larger objective, not ends in themselves. Mossad chief David Barnea made this clear during a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in mid-April, stating publicly that Israel's campaign against Iran would be considered complete only with the fall of the regime: "Our commitment will be fulfilled only when this extreme regime is replaced. A regime that seeks our destruction must cease to exist." This matters because, according to the New York Times, Barnea had presented Netanyahu with an assessment that the Mossad could galvanize the Iranian opposition and ignite riots capable of collapsing Iran's government. The plan rested on the belief that if Israeli and American forces could decapitate the leadership and destroy the regime's repressive apparatus, the Mossad and CIA could facilitate a domestic uprising that would install a new government in Tehran. It did not happen. Public protests failed to materialize due to a combination of Iran's brutal repression of the previous protests, public anger at the US and Israel for killing civilians in their strikes, and the population rallying around the flag. And if Israel's spy chief is publicly insisting the war will not end without regime change, then this could drag on for a long time. According to Reuters, US intelligence indicated that Iran's leadership was still largely intact and not at risk of collapse anytime soon. That assessment came two weeks into the war, and in the time since, while the US and Israel have taken out more of Iran's leaders, the regime has had time to adapt and consolidate power under new leadership structures that appear determined to survive. ### The Lebanon Complication Then there is Lebanon, where Israel has been waging a parallel war against Hezbollah that will complicate any Israeli declaration of victory. Iran has linked any ceasefire agreement to a resolution of the Lebanon situation, conditioning its agreement to end the war on a cessation of Israeli operations against Hezbollah. This has created a diplomatic tangle. Even after the April 8th ceasefire between the United States and Iran, Israel launched Operation Eternal Darkness, striking over 100 Hezbollah targets within ten minutes and killing more than 350 people. Israel's position is that Hezbollah, as Iran's most powerful proxy, must be dismantled for any lasting security arrangement to hold. The Lebanese government has attempted to ban Hezbollah's military activities, but the group retains extensive weaponry and support in Shia communities. From Jerusalem's perspective, allowing Hezbollah to remain armed and operational would leave a potent Iranian capability on Israel's northern border even if Tehran's direct military threat has been degraded. ### A Definition of Victory That Keeps Expanding This creates a situation where Israel's definition of victory continues to expand. The initial goal of eliminating Iran's nuclear threat has grown to include regime change in Tehran and the disarmament of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Each of these objectives on its own represents a massive undertaking. Achieving all of them simultaneously may prove impossible, particularly given the international pressure mounting on Israel to halt its operations in Lebanon. A true victory from Israel's point of view may be a long way off, but that does not seem likely to deter Jerusalem from pursuing its objectives. ## Why No One Is Winning Step back and a pattern emerges across all three belligerents. Each has inflicted real, measurable damage. Each has also fallen short of the goals it set for itself, and in several cases the war has actively undermined those goals. Iran survives but remains under blockade and sanctions. America has degraded Iran's military without securing an exit, a reopened strait, or the regime change its actions implied. Israel has decapitated Iran's leadership and gutted its air defenses, yet the regime it set out to topple has consolidated rather than collapsed. The deeper problem is that victory for each side is defined in ways that the others can deny. Iran wins by outlasting and extracting concessions; Washington and Jerusalem win only by forcing outcomes the Iranian regime is structurally built to resist. With Iran tying a ceasefire to Lebanon, Israel expanding its aims, and Washington's objectives shifting by the week, the war has settled into a contest of endurance rather than a march toward any decisive conclusion. On the current trajectory, the most likely outcome is not a clean victory for anyone but a protracted, unstable stalemate punctuated by the constant risk that the ceasefire collapses and the fighting resumes. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Iran's strategy for coming out ahead in the war? Iran's strategy was never to match American firepower one for one. Instead it aims to outlast Washington's willingness to fight, making the war costly and disruptive enough that a negotiated settlement becomes preferable — a calculation sharpened by approaching US midterm congressional elections. Its 10-point plan signals its key priorities: sanctions relief, a toll on Strait of Hormuz traffic, and protection for its proxy network across the region. ### Did the United States achieve its stated military objectives? Not fully. By the estimate of its own intelligence services, Iran's missile stockpile has been cut to only about half its original size, its fleet of hundreds to over a thousand fast boats survives, the proxy-funding question remains unresolved, and although centrifuges were destroyed, Iran still controls its deeply buried highly enriched uranium. The regime also remains in place and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. ### Who in Iran's leadership did Israel assassinate, and what did those kills achieve? Israel assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war, then killed Ali Larijani nearly three weeks later. Larijani had become the most powerful figure in Tehran after Khamenei's death and was one of the few officials able to manage both military operations and diplomatic channels simultaneously. Despite these spectacular intelligence successes, the broader goal of triggering a domestic uprising failed: the Iranian population rallied around the flag rather than revolting, and US intelligence assessed the regime was not at risk of imminent collapse. ### Why didn't the Iranian population rise up against the regime? The Mossad had assessed it could galvanize the opposition and ignite riots capable of toppling the government once the leadership was decapitated. The uprising never came, due to a combination of Iran's brutal repression of earlier protests, public anger at the US and Israel for killing civilians in their strikes, and a rally-around-the-flag effect among the Iranian public. US intelligence confirmed two weeks into the war that the regime was largely intact and adapting under new leadership structures. ### Why does Lebanon complicate any path to an Israeli victory? Iran has tied any ceasefire to a resolution of the Lebanon situation, conditioning the war's end on Israel halting operations against Hezbollah. Yet Israel insists Hezbollah must be dismantled for any lasting security arrangement, and even after the April 8th US-Iran ceasefire Israel launched Operation Eternal Darkness, striking over 100 Hezbollah targets within ten minutes and killing more than 350 people. 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