IRAN WARIran War Has Become a Lesson in How Power Really Works
Military superiority still matters enormously. But the ability to endure politically, economically and socially matter just as much. Iran is a state with a complex, resilient structure, and depth of legitimacy especially when it comes to conflicts with the US and Israel. Iran understood that from the beginning. It has taken Iran’s opponents too long to grasp the same facts. But they have now been educated by experience.
For months, the Iran war was framed through the language of military success. This was shaped in part by longstanding orientalist assumptions reflected in the rhetoric of leaders such as Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu about the relative weakness and fragility of states such as Iran.
Encouraged by Israeli intelligence capabilities, precision strikes and overwhelming American military superiority, many policymakers appeared to assume Tehran would eventually collapse under pressure. Iran, in this view, was too isolated, internally divided and economically weakened to withstand sustained US-Israeli escalation. Some even suggested American troops would be welcomed by sections of a population frustrated with the regime.
But this hasn’t been the reality of the past two months. The Trump administration now appears to be groping for any settlement it can sell as a “win”. This may be hard if, as has been reported, the US military campaign ends without Iran being forced to make any meaningful concessions over its nuclear program.
If that transpires, it will suggest that the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, was right when he said that the US has been humiliated by Iran in a lesson about how power really works.
The problem was not simply military miscalculation. It was strategic incoherence rooted in assumption that Iran could not meaningfully endure prolonged confrontation. As the war progressed, the fantasy of decisive victory collapsed under the weight of economic, political and strategic reality.
No Clear Objective
At the same time, at least in public, America’s leadership appeared regularly to change its mind about what would represent a “win”. Was it destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, neutralizing its armed forces, forcing regime change, or ending Tehran’s regional influence? Throughout the conflict, the objectives shifted constantly. That ambiguity was not a minor flaw in strategy. It was the strategy’s central weakness.
Modern wars require a clear objective and a realistic path to achieving it. Throughout this conflict, the US and Israel never convincingly defined either.
If the aim was regime change, there was never serious appetite for the kind of occupation and state reconstruction that had in Iraq and Afghanistan already proved disastrously costly.
If the aim was simply degrading Iran’s military capabilities, that was always going to be a temporary fix – Iran has spent decades building a system designed around resilience, decentralization and survival under pressure.
