The costs associated with any war—losses of lives, treasure, and security—are to be expected. And so it is with the US-Israel war on Iran. It was unnecessary. It has been massive. And it has been waged without any clear objective or strategic purpose. Though only a few weeks old, and still too early to project how it will play out, early signs of this war’s costs and consequences are worrisome.

The amounts of weapons that the US and Israel have dropped on Iranian targets have had a devastating impact on Iran’s people and the country’s infrastructure and resources. It is difficult to imagine that this situation can be remedied any time soon. As a result, Iran, which was already struggling with a flagging economy and a reform-minded and restive population, will most likely endure years of political unrest met by massive repression.

Once illegally attacked by the US and Israel, instead of seeking support from neighboring Arab countries, Iran has struck out at them with a vengeance, destroying some of their infrastructure and economic resources. While the Arab Gulf states can recover, the fragile rapprochement that had been developing between them and Iran has been shattered and will not be easily rebuilt.

A disruption in the supply of oil and gas has resulted from Iran’s choking of the Straits of Hormuz and Israel’s and Iran’s bombings of oil and gas facilities on both sides of the Gulf. This has caused a steep rise in the price of fuel, a sharp decline in the stock market, and the loss of hundreds of billions in overall wealth of investments and pension funds. The war’s economic impacts will continue to reverberate throughout the remainder of the year.

This isn’t the first time that Israel or the US have looked at what they had done to these countries and their peoples and said, “Well, that’s finished,” only to find that the devastating toll of the losses they inflicted and dislocation they created produced a festering bitterness that didn’t dissipate in time.

Meanwhile, the excessive amounts of weaponry so far expended in the war has resulted in reported shortages in both the US and Israel, with President Donald Trump asking Congress to approve an additional $200 billion for the Pentagon and a substantial increase in Israel’s military assistance. As with Ukraine and Gaza, the only winners of this war appear to be the US arms manufacturers.

The damage done doesn’t stop there. The Lebanese Hezbollah forgot that Israel never plays by the rules. They responded to Israel’s murder of Iran’s Ayatollah—a spiritual leader for many Shi’a Muslims—by firing a few shells across their border. Despite the fact that Israel has daily violated its five-month-old ceasefire with Lebanon, Israel used Hezbollah’s shelling to launch a sustained and disproportionate attack on Lebanon. To date,........

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