The USA in tandem with Israel launched its ferocious aerial assault on Iran in February 2026 and seven months later the war shows no signs of abating. According to military experts and analysts the US President Donald Trump has trapped the US in an unwinnable conflict that has made Iran’s revolutionary institutions even more united and powerful than they were before the war. Idea that the Iranian regime will simply implode or vanish due to public pressure and mass protests has proved false and misleading. The Iranian institutions are very cohesive and very different from Qaddafi’s Libya that collapsed like a house of cards during the 2011 mass uprising against the Qaddafi regime. Despite the assassination of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei and some military commanders the combined might of Israel and the USA has not been able to trigger a regime change in Iran. The Iranian stockpile of drones and missiles has survived the American assault and Iran has continued to deploy guerilla tactics as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Libya remains broken and fractured even 15 years after the end of the Qaddafi rule. The Government of national unity GNU is in control of the capital Tripoli and the House of Representatives based in the East refuses to accept control of the GNU. The country’s political framework is so volatile that the son of Qaddafi the one time heir was murdered in his home by armed assassins in broad daylight. The Libya drama cannot be replicated in Iran because of the indoctrination of national forces in the ideas of the 1979 revolution for over half a century. The Iranian revolutionary guards are simply too invested in the state’s survival to easily succumb into fragments. According to Iran experts the IRGC accounts for more than half of the Iranian economy, an entanglement which has grown as a result of the late Ali Khamenei’s growing reliance on it. As the effects of sanctions took hold the IGRC curated lucrative smuggling networks for oil, drugs and tobacco to generate rents. It also became instrumental to the maintenance of critical domestic industries affected by sanctions, such as oil and gas, construction, telecommunications and mining. Iran in 2009 witnessed the spectacle of a mass Public protest movement to contest the results of the presidential elections. During this item the supreme leader Ali Khamenei grew increasingly reliant on the IRGC to maintain social and political order. The symbiosis between the two grew greatly as they sought to strengthen the regime both at home and abroad.
The US remains a major most potent military actor and its technological ecosystem continues to generate extraordinary levels of innovation. The dollar still remains the backbone of the global financial system. But power is not measured only in capabilities but in the ability to shape outcomes, build coalitions, and maintain legitimacyWashington has demonstrated the ability to strike Iranian targets with precision and dominate across multiple domains. Yet the broader strategic environment has become harder to control. Disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have rattled energy markets, and regional escalation risks drawing additional actors into the conflict. Even allies that share concerns about Iran’s regional behavior question the campaign’s strategy.
Energy independence now gives the United States greater room for maneuver. It cushions the economic shock that once accompanied conflicts in the Gulf and provides leverage over states reliant on global energy markets. But it does not resolve the deeper challenge of maintaining legitimacy in a more diffuse international system. Military power supported by energy wealth is formidable but not omnipotent. It cannot guarantee the ability to shape political outcomes in a world where power is no longer concentrated in a single capital. After so many months of war, the human and economic costs have increased alarmingly—and not only for Iran and the United States, but for all countries indirectly involved in the conflict. So far, seven U.S. service members and over 1,500 people in Iran have been killed. American involvement is already estimated to have cost Washington around $37 billion. It goes without saying that American taxpayers will add this cost to growing inflation and the increasing fuel costs in the near future.
The war is already unpopular in many world capitals, including across much of Europe, and this will be a significant handicap for Republicans as November’s midterms loom in the horizon.As for the Iranian state, we must understand that it behaves as a non-rational actor ready to inflict a lot of damage to its geopolitical surroundings in order to survive. Iran is inflicting maximum pain on the U.S. and its allies in order to stay in power. Despite warnings from Turkey and several European countries—who are looking for ways to correct the wrongdoings of Trump and keep the Strait of Hormuz open—Iran has continued attacking the infrastructure of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad
