Steven Erlanger, NYT (“Six Months In, Iran’s Regime Stands, U.S. Goals Remain Unmet“):
It was supposed to be quick.
Still, six months after the U.S. and Israel launched massive airstrikes on Iran, the conflict drags on. The Trump administration has replaced its military war with an economic one, but the result is likely to be no different, analysts said, with a lack of American clarity about goals, a decline in American credibility and a strategic defeat.
One thing remains constant, however. The ordinary people of Iran are bearing the brunt of the war, victims of both the United States and their own leaders.
On the first day of the war, Feb. 28, President Trump promised Iranians that “the hour of your freedom is at hand.” Six months later, his administration is trying to impoverish them further, hoping against hope that they will revolt against a repressive, militarized regime and overthrow it.
The Iranian leadership, increasingly dominated by military men, sees its own survival as the nation’s, and it considers the sacrifices of ordinary Iranians as a necessary act of patriotism and even martyrdom. It has been ever more ruthless in stamping out the slightest signs of dissent.
It is hard to dress up what has clearly been an American failure to bend Iran to its will, despite the might of the combined American and Israeli militaries. Not only has the Islamic Republic survived, but it effectively controls the Strait of Hormuz. It has strengthened its influence in the region, with even the countries it was bombing a few months ago trying to reinvigorate ties with Iran.
“The war has failed to deliver U.S. objectives,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.
Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and head of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, judged the war a failure. “We did a lot of damage to Iran, but they have come out stronger than before,” she said. Iran’s neighbors have decided they must find a modus operandi with an Islamic Republic that is not going away.
American credibility among allies has suffered along with Mr. Trump’s own reputation for avoiding costly, interminable wars in the Middle East and promoting “affordability” at home. And it has made his promise to liberate ordinary Iranians look hollow.
WaPo (“Trump promised a short Iran war. Six months later, he has few good options.“)
The day after President Donald Trump launched the war in Iran on Feb. 28, he said the fight could last four to five weeks. Six months later, there is little to suggest the end is near.
The Iran war has become a major challenge to Trump’s second term, hurting his standing with voters at home and eroding the U.S. position in the Middle East. And the president’s ability to shape the outcome appears to be severely constrained after Iranian leaders discovered that they could withstand intense bombardment and slowly degrade the world’s most powerful military with a cheap combination of mines and drones.
Now Trump needs to reopen the Strait of Hormuz while operating within his own red lines: His fierce aversion to becoming a 21st-century Herbert Hoover, who presided over the Great Depression, limits the economic moves available to him. His decision, at least so far, to hold back from the riskiest and most extreme military moves against Iran similarly limits his war options.
AP (“Six months on, the Iran war has changed the Middle East, but not in the way its architects had hoped“):
It’s been six months since the United States and Israel attacked Iran with the perennial goal of transforming the Middle East through military force. The region has changed, but not in the way they had hoped.
The Islamic Republic survived the assassination of its top leaders and weeks of heavy bombing, and found a potent form of leverage in the Strait of Hormuz. Gulf Arab nations saw worrying gaps open up in the American security umbrella they have relied on for decades — and some are looking at alternatives.
Israel has once again thrashed its enemies without defeating them, and after nearly three years of war in Gaza and new land seizures, is at risk of a generational rupture with the U.S., its closest ally. Hopes of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia — another enduring U.S. and Israeli aspiration — have dimmed even further.
When they attacked Iran on Feb. 28, the U.S. and Israel hoped to topple its clerical leadership and replace it with a pro-Western government. Instead, they’ve ended up with a “hardened and very radical regime,” said Barbara Leaf, a former ambassador who served as assistant secretary of state for the Middle East in the Biden administration.
“That is going to be exceptionally difficult to deal with, to say the least,” she said. Iran’s “confidence has grown over the months that it cannot only survive, but it can prevail, it can reset the regional landscape.”
In the runup to the war, the Islamic Republic appeared more vulnerable than at any point since Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded in 1980.
Iran’s currency had cratered, setting off some of the biggest anti-government protests in its history, which were brutally suppressed in January, with thousands killed. Israel and the U.S. had pounded its military and nuclear sites during a 12-day war the previous summer, and its militant allies had been throttled in the wars that followed Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of Gaza.
But the tide changed shortly after the initial U.S. and Israeli strikes, as Iran’s leaders were quickly replaced and its people — sheltering from the war — ignored exhortations from the attackers to rise up again.
Reuters (“Iran’s disfigured supreme leader remains invisible six months into an existential war“):
Six months after the airstrikes that began the war and propelled a badly wounded Mojtaba Khamenei into the role of Iran’s supreme leader, he remains entirely unseen and unheard by Iranians — a vacuum at the heart of his country’s leadership. Questions over his condition and role are growing increasingly fraught, with Iran facing critical decisions over a war that has set the Middle East aflame while trashing the country’s already fragile economy.
Iranian officials and other senior sources in the country say Khamenei remains in control, ruling from the shadows for security reasons as he recovers from disfiguring wounds while delegating broad daily authority to a coterie of top figures. But with no photograph, video or audio message released since his appointment a week into the war, Iranians are ever more sceptical about his position in an Islamic Republic in which the leader’s voice is meant to be absolute. “The question is no longer whether Mojtaba is alive, but whether Iran still has a functioning supreme leader,” said Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute in Washington.
Khamenei’s only messages to the Iranian people have come via a handful of written statements read aloud by news broadcasters and he was even missing from the extravagant week of funeral rites for his father last month.
Top officials and other insiders attribute Khamenei’s absence to assassination fears and say he holds frequent meetings with top figures, receives all major reports and takes the final decisions on every important issue. President Masoud Pezeshkian said on August 10 that he had held a seven-hour meeting with Khamenei. But even among the Islamic Republic’s most hardline supporters, doubts are creeping in. “We need to hear our leader’s voice, or see any sign that he is there on top and leading the country to give us more confidence,” said a member of the Basij volunteer militia in Qom, the seminary city at the heart of Iran’s theocratic state. While the Basij member, who requested anonymity to discuss such a sensitive subject, said he believed Khamenei was indeed still making key decisions, the lack of even a photograph was damaging morale and not in Iran’s interest.
NYT (“Why Many Iranians Are Losing Hope After Six Months of War“):
When the United States and Israel rained down missiles and bombs on Iran to start their war exactly six months ago today, there were some Iranians who, within a swirl of conflicting emotions, saw in the destruction something unexpected: hope.
“The one thing I’m certain about is that I wasn’t sad,” said Negar, a 35-year-old lawyer, describing feelings that were echoed by other Iranians interviewed via voice memos and text messages. “There was anxiety. There was worry. But there was no grief when the war began.”
Six months later, the hope that Negar and other Iranians had that the war might presage a better future is largely gone, replaced with gnawing worries about the future, cynicism about the intentions of the United States and growing desperation from living in a failing economy.
[…]
[W]hether they initially welcomed the U.S.-Israeli military campaign or not, many Iranians say they no longer think that the government is set to crumble and are more focused on surviving an enduring economic crisis that the conflict has made much worse.
[…]
For some Iranians, President Trump’s erratic policymaking has been an inflection point. After the United States failed to achieve its stated goals, including preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, changing the government and obliterating its missile program, Mr. Trump threatened to wipe out Iranian civilization, strike the country’s infrastructure and send the country “back to the Stone Ages.” U.S. and Israeli strikes also hit or damaged places that are important to civilians, including steel plants, petrochemical facilities, bridges and historic cultural sites.
Several Iranians said they now view the United States as fundamentally self-interested, but also incompetent and inconsistent.
WaPo (“Putin sees U.S. as weakened by Iran war, intelligence reports say“):
CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s mysterious trip to Moscow this week was preceded by fresh U.S. intelligence indicating that the Kremlin sees the United States as weakened by the Iran war, offering Russia an opportunity to escalate action against American interests and allies in Europe, according to two people familiar with the matter.
[…]
The classified intelligence suggesting that Putin sees the U.S. as weakened by the six-month-old war in Iran follows reports of diminished troop readiness and munitions shortfalls as a result of the extended campaign against Tehran.
U.S. military stockpiles of key weapons have been severely depleted, including Patriot and other air-defense platforms, as well as sophisticated offensive weapons like Tomahawk cruise missiles and the short-range Army Tactical Missile System, which is also in demand in Ukraine.
The Post previously reported that the U.S. has lost roughly a quarter of its Reaper drones, which cost between $30 million and $50 million apiece and are used for surveillance and targeting.
The weapons shortages have alarmed allies in Asia, raising questions about Washington’s ability to deter a potential confrontation with China.
Aside from giving comfort to our enemies, fomenting doubt among our friends, and being wildly unpopular with the American people, though, the war is going great.
