What is the United States going to do to defeat Iran?

What is the United States going to do to defeat Iran? It attacked Iran in June 2025 and in February 2026, and then, after a brief period of peace in July this year, the USA renewed the war in August. Israel has been in an undeclared low-intensity war against Iran for 35 years.

The Americans have fired missiles, rockets, and drones at Iran, as well as sent most of the Iranian fleet to the bottom of the ocean. Uncle Sam has attempted to decapitate the Iranian government and has killed the Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, in the opening salvo. It boasted that it had slain former President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, but a few months later, he proved that he was very much alive. The US has had sanctions on Iran on and off since 1980. The current sanctions are severe. But nothing seems to work.

What would victory look like for the US? The United States is no longer even talking about regime change. The US would like to see Iran get rid of its enriched uranium and subject itself to very extensive inspections to ensure it never starts a nuclear weapons programme. It seems that the USA wants to go back to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in 2015 under Obama. Trump denounced it as ‘the worst deal ever’ and then twice extended it when he became president. The UN and even the USA repeatedly confirmed that Iran scrupulously abided by the terms of the JCPOA. Even when Trump renounced the JCPOA, he did not allege that Iran had violated it. The United States is now in a far worse position vis-à-vis Iran than it was when the JCPOA was extant.

Remember Trump said this war was ‘completed, almost’ after ten days? Remember, after a fortnight, he said it had ‘already been won’? Remember last year he said the Iranian nuclear programme had been ‘totally and utterly obliterated’ and then, eight months later, it had magically reappeared, so he needed to start another war? Who is stupid enough to believe a word he says?

In August 2026, the United States announced new sanctions on Iran and on anyone else trading with Iran. China reposted that it reserved the right to determine its reposting policy and would not be bullied by the United States. Other Western countries are mostly unenthusiastic about this. The world economy has been roiled by Trump’s tariffs and by starting a totally avoidable war, which caused energy prices to shoot up and played havoc with international aviation because so many passengers change planes in hubs like Dubai and Doha. 13% of all air travel is via the Persian Gulf.

Ultra-sanctions on Iran may cause pain but are unlikely to work. Iran has suffered economically for sure. The Iranians are very tough and have not been defeated for centuries. They suffered up to a million casualties in the 1980–88 war against Iraq. Now, with a much bigger population, they have suffered about 10,000 casualties over the last two years. They are hard enough to endure such pain. They are adept at enduring sanctions and finding workarounds because they have been under sanctions for most of the last 45 years. They buy sanctioned plane parts clandestinely from other countries such as Armenia.

Iran has a complicated relationship with Pakistan because the military and intelligence establishment is anti-Shia. Iran is 90% Shia. But even some Sunni Pakistanis admire Iran’s toughness and its Persian literature.

Relations with Afghanistan are bad because the Taliban is vigorously anti-Shia. Iran hosts many Afghan refugees. Iran backs the Hazara Shia minority in Afghanistan. But it is easy to smuggle goods through Afghanistan to Iran. Being the poorest country in Asia, the Taliban would allow this in return for payment.

Turkmenistan is a neighbour of Iran. It is the North Korea of Central Asia. This extremely oppressive tyranny is officially neutral. Its relations with Iran are not bad. Again, it would be open to assisting with sanctions evasion for the right price.

Azeri-Iranian relations are strained. That is because two-thirds of historic Azerbaijan is in Iran now. Moreover, Azerbaijan is an ally of Israel. Israeli listening posts in Azerbaijan have enabled the Israelis to pinpoint targets in Iran. The Azerbaijanis will not assist Iran in breaking sanctions.

Turkey is a neighbour of Iran and has fairly good relations with Tehran. The Turks have sometimes arrested Iranian dissidents in Turkey at the unofficial request of Iran and pushed them over the border into the hands of the Iranian police without an extradition process. The Turkish economy is suffering, and helping Iran to break sanctions is an easy way to make money. Turkey has expedited Russian sanctions-busting without suffering any penalty. Turkey’s relations with Israel and the USA are worse now than they have been for decades.

Iraq and Iran now have very cordial relations. Democracy in Iraq has led to the Shia majority being in the driving seat for the first time. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards are in Iraq at the request of Baghdad. They were crucial in defeating ISIS ten years ago. The Iraqis would likely facilitate sanctions-busting.

In 2023, the Iranian government was thought to be deeply unpopular, and British intelligence estimated the chance of a revolution that year at 50%. It is now much lower. Major unrest in January 2026 made Israel and the USA think the time was ripe to start a war. Just one push and the government would fall like a house of cards. By the time the war started, the bravest Iranian dissidents were either in jail, in exile, or hanging from a hemp rope. The chance of regime change is now minimal.

Even liberal and secular Iranians do not like their country being attacked and are aghast at the thousands of civilians killed by US and Israeli bombardment. The war has caused some neutral and even dissident people to rally to the government. They have sunk their differences and note that now one bond unites them all: defence of their homeland. The US must have learned this lesson to its utter despair now.

The US has turned to secondary sanctions as a means of bringing Iran to heel because it has run out of military options. The US dealt mighty strokes of war to the Iranians and suffered only a handful of deaths itself. This was because the US used its most sophisticated munitions, which enabled it to deal death from a distance at almost no risk to the US military. But such missiles are very costly and in short supply. It will take several years of production to rebuild its stockpile. The US badly needs to build up this stockpile in case Russia invades another European country or the US chooses to defend Taiwan in the event of a war there. At the moment, the USA does not have a realistic deterrent because it is so low on missiles.

No one seems to mount a ground invasion. Even seizing the oil facilities on Kharg Island was not attempted. The US extricated itself ingloriously from Afghanistan, and the US invasion of Iraq has seen some rather mixed results. There is very high opposition within the United States itself to another ground invasion. Iran would make the war in Iraq look like a picnic by comparison. Iran is over three times the size of Iraq in area and population, and it is much more mountainous. The government has greater legitimacy, and there is no insurgent movement equivalent to the Kurdish separatists in Iraq.

Senator Lindsey Graham died in August 2026. The Republican from South Carolina was so Zionist that he made even Netanyahu seem mild. He was more warlike than Genghis Khan. The death of this bloodthirsty advocate of endless slaughter has been a significant blow to Trump’s war policy. Senator Graham’s sister, Darline, is seeking to be elected to the US Senate to replace him. Even if she wins, she will not be such a noted voice for pugnacity.

A British Prime Minister once said, ‘No war is at first unpopular,’ but this war was unpopular with the American public even when it started. The Trump administration made no attempt to explain to the American people why this war was necessary, legal, moral, or winnable. Nor, indeed, did the US Government make any effort to win over its allies. America’s closest friends, like Canada and the United Kingdom, were kept in the dark until the United States began its unprovoked war of illegal aggression.

Trump’s Republican Party is going to do badly in the mid-term elections in November. The Iran War will be a midterm part of this. A Democrat-controlled Congress might stop funding for the war. Trump may well end the war in 2027 as he tires of it, with no sign of victory. JD Vance, his Vice President, is 90% sure to be the Republican nominee in 2028. He is privately against the war. Trump boasted he did not start any wars, and he has broken that pledge. Even the Republican Party is getting disenchanted with this war, and so is Israel. In October, Netanyahu and his Likud Party will probably be voted out, and a less aggressive government will replace him and his warmongers.