The US Cannot Win the War in Iran

Trump's options in Iran are to lose or to lose.

The US is a great power which has decided to start a war with a weakened revolutionary pariah state. Everything should point to a US victory, right? No, I cannot see how the US can win its war with Iran. The war was launched with unclear aims by a man with no long term vision for his own country, let alone one with a completely different culture on the other side of the globe. His war aim – based on social media statements, a worrying indicator in and of itself – appears to be unconditional surrender, while also ruling out the possibility of boots on the ground. Even by more modest standards for what victory would entail, I don’t see how the US could possibly win.

Since August 2023 I’ve argued that the defining feature of current military technology is what I call the defender’s advantage. In a time with highly accurate ranged weaponry, and where aerial reconnaissance drones are cheap and plentiful it becomes very easy to see an enemy’s movements and fire on them before they have a chance to fire on you. This means that in any war between states with reasonable militaries it will be far more difficult to attack than to defend. We see evidence of this dynamic daily in Ukraine, where a smaller, poorer country comprised of plains, farmland, and rolling hills has been able to hold off Russia for years.

You might retort that Iran is a completely different beast, after all the US and Israel are not trying to occupy Iranian provinces. Still, it is easier for the Iranian military to hit the attackers than vice versa, and the mountainous terrain of Iran makes it easier than in Ukraine to launch drones. The drones Russia are using against Ukrainian infrastructure every night are originally an Iranian design. There is no reason to believe that Iran has not seen how drones are used in Ukraine, and how effective drones can be.

Furthermore, the experience of Russia in Ukraine suggests that what used to be strengths have turned into weaknesses. Russia’s clear superiority in design, manufacture, and number of fighter jets and naval vessels have not resulted in a meaningful battlefield advantage. Indeed, the war has conspicuously lacked tank battles and other staples of mid-century industrial warfare. The humble drone appears mightier than the tank, and we could well find that it is mightier than the destroyer and the aircraft carrier.

A key consideration in modern warfare then is countering drones and other airborne ordnance. Missile defence systems are not rare, both the US and Israel have capable systems, and the US manufactures a lot of interceptor missiles. But again, there is an asymmetry here as interceptors are generally much more expensive than the threats they intercept – sometimes ten or dozens of times more expensive. There is also a logistics consideration, missiles are manufactured in the factories in the continental US, not on aircraft carriers. When patriot batteries stand empty and Iran still have drones and missiles to launch the US will not risk the lives of sailors and multi-billion dollar hardware just to launch another airstrike on Iran, it will withdraw.

So the war is a race against time for the US. Can it achieve its goals before it runs out of interceptors? Probably not. As mentioned, it is unclear what Trump really wants to accomplish, but leaving that aside, wars are generally easier for the defending side to win as they “just” need to stop the aggressor.  We may not know what the US’ goals for the war are, but in a sense it doesn’t matter as we know what Iran’s goal is: to preserve the revolution. If it succeeds then the US has failed.  

The Houthis in Yemen have lasted for years in the face of US and Israeli bombardment. The idea that a much more advanced country like Iran couldn’t hold the world’s oil supply hostage by closing the strait of Hormuz and preserve the revolution is laughable. The idea that the US will be able to get Teheran to surrender unconditionally before it runs out of interceptors in the Middle East without putting infantry on the ground is even more laughable.

Something has to give. Either the US will have to slink off with its tail between its legs, or it will have to escalate its efforts. Both options are terrible for a president during an election year. And that’s if we discount the possibility that Iran can be a driving force. If Iran sinks a US destroyer then the US will be humiliated and forced to respond forcefully. American boots on the ground would probably mean the end of the revolutionary regime in Teheran, eventually, but it will take thousands of American lives and years, possibly decades. Perhaps it will all be for naught like in Afghanistan.

It is honestly impressive that a democratically elected political leader has managed to construct such a magnificent lose-lose scenario during an election year. I am but a lowly blogger, and Trump is the most powerful politician in the West, but I’m calling it now: there is simply no way for the US to win the war in Iran. 

If you liked this post you can read a previous post about the war in Iran here or the rest of my writings here. I also have a section for longer reads I call essays here, I particularly recommend my series called The Bird & The Technoking exploring Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, and its political and cultural implications. It'd mean a lot to me if you recommended the blog to a friend or coworker. Come back next Monday for a new post!

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I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.

Written by Karl Johansson

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Cover photo by elif özlem aydeniz from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson