The conventional wisdom settling in after the announcement of a framework deal to end the war in Iran is that the United States and Israel lost. The narrative writes itself: the US failed to dismantle Iran’s regime, failed to eliminate its missile capability entirely, and ended up negotiating with the same government it tried to destroy. Iran, by this telling, won through survival.
The reality is worse than either side wants to admit. Everyone lost the war with Iran.
The United States and Israel achieved real tactical victories. Operation Epic Fury killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, in its opening salvo. US and Israeli airstrikes destroyed significant portions of Iran’s nuclear enrichment infrastructure at Natanz and Fordow, cratered its ballistic missile production lines, and eliminated senior commanders across the IRGC and Quds Force. By any measure of conventional military power, the campaign was devastating.
But strategic success is measured differently. Iran’s regime did not collapse. Its ability to project power was damaged but not broken. And the single most consequential Iranian weapon turned out to be neither its missile arsenal nor its nuclear program, but something far more primitive: geography.
When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, it weaponized the chokepoint through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply normally passes. The International Crisis Group’s Ali Vaez described it precisely: “In the attempt to try to prevent Iran from developing a weapon of mass destruction, the US handed Iran a weapon of mass disruption.” A country that did not possess a single operational aircraft carrier found it could paralyze the global economy by simply refusing to let ships through a narrow stretch of water.
The costs cascaded from there. Brent crude spent months above $100 a barrel. Asian economies dependent on Gulf oil scrambled for alternatives. The IEA authorized the largest coordinated strategic reserve release in history – 400 million barrels – and it barely made a dent. The blockade forced more than 130 commercial vessels to divert, and CENTCOM reported disabling eight violator ships. Millions of barrels of oil that should have reached world markets sat idle.
Iran’s own economy was ravaged by the blockade and the bombing. But it banked on the calculation that American voters would tire of $5 gas before the regime exhausted its options. By late April, a Reuters/Ipsos poll put Trump’s approval at 34 percent, and only one in three Americans approved of the war. A Fox News poll showed 55 percent opposed to US action in Iran. That domestic math shaped the negotiating table more than any battlefield development.
Israel’s position is no cleaner. Netanyahu declared victory over Iran on June 16 and ruled out any withdrawal from Lebanese territory seized during the war. But Israel absorbed direct missile strikes on Dimona, suffered dozens of civilian casualties, reactivated the Hezbollah front in Lebanon, and now faces an internationally isolated settlement expansion policy that the UN has called annexation by another name. The “victory” came at enormous cost and produced no durable security guarantee.
The Gulf states – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia – were caught in the middle. They offered ports, airspace, and diplomatic cover for the US campaign, and in return their cities faced Iranian missile and drone fire. The Houthis threatened that any Gulf state joining the Strait of Hormuz campaign “will be the first to lose.” The threat was not empty.
China and Russia watched from a distance, offering rhetorical support to Iran but never intervening. The war exposed China’s vulnerability to a Hormuz closure – it depends on the strait for roughly 30 percent of its crude imports – and forced Beijing to reconsider its energy security posture. Russia condemned the strikes on Natanz but did nothing material. Both countries abstained from the UN Security Council resolution condemning Iran’s attacks on Gulf neighbors, a calculated posture that preserved deniability on all sides.
What remains is not a peace. It is a pause built on exhaustion.
The memorandum of understanding set for signing on June 19 reopens the Strait of Hormuz on a toll-free basis, lifts the US naval blockade, and suspends sanctions on Iranian oil sales. But Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi confirmed that the nuclear program would be addressed during a 60-day period of talks, not resolved. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told state television that “our sword will always hang over the Strait of Hormuz.” The central issues that triggered the war – Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its missile program, its regional influence – are deferred, not settled.
Foreign Policy’s analysis puts it plainly: months of fighting revealed that multiple countries can impose costs, but none can impose order. That is the honest accounting of this war. The US can destroy any target it can find. Iran can close any strait it chooses. Israel can strike any capital it names. But none of that adds up to stability, security, or peace.
Everyone lost. The question now is whether anyone learned anything.