On February 28, 2026, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an operation U.S. President Donald Trump said was carried out in direct coordination with Israel. The killing marks a historic rupture, reshaping the very contours of the conflict between Iran, and the U.S.-Israeli axis. For years, Washington leaned on diplomacy, pairing negotiations with a strategy of “maximum pressure” through sanctions to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Israel, by contrast, never concealed its preference for the use of force, repeatedly signaling its readiness to dismantle Iran’s program militarily, and urging the United States to back that course. That posture reflects a long-standing doctrine Israel had enacted before, destroying Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, and striking Syria’s nuclear infrastructure in 2007.

On the other side, Iran’s approach can best be understood as a blend of pragmatism and security-driven calculation in the face of a persistent threat. While it continued to expand its nuclear program, enhance its military capabilities, and deepen its regional footprint, Tehran simultaneously sought to signal restraint: issuing a religious decree prohibiting the acquisition of nuclear weapons, joining international non-proliferation agreements, granting access to international inspectors, and engaging in multiple rounds of negotiations with Washington. Those efforts culminated in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reached under U.S. President Barack Obama. Israel then rejected the deal outright, a stance that contributed to a noticeable chill between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the time. Against this backdrop of divergence, a prolonged shadow war took shape, one marked by assassinations, cyber operations, and attacks on shipping, drawing all three actors into a sustained, undeclared confrontation.

Following the current calibrated, but steadily intensifying U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, and a reciprocal Iranian response that escalated in both scope and reach, extending beyond Israel to target U.S. bases and military installations across the region, the world is now witnessing what may be one of the most consequential conflicts of the contemporary international order. Its significance lies not merely in the number of regional and international actors involved, but in the breadth of its repercussions, spilling beyond political boundaries into deeply disruptive economic and military effects. What, then, are the real calculations of gains and losses for the United States, Israel, and Iran in this war? The answer cannot be reduced to immediate outcomes. Rather, it requires a multi-layered assessment of the war’s trajectory and its implications for all three actors, ranging from the extent to which stated objectives are achieved, to the scale of political, military, and economic costs incurred, the pressures exerted on each actor’s domestic front, and the broader strategic position each is likely to occupy once the war subsides, regardless of its formal outcome.

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At the strategic level, the nature of this war becomes clearest when viewed through the objectives each side seeks to achieve. These objectives reveal not only the core stakes at play, but also their limits, and the possible trajectories the conflict may yet take. U.S. President Donald Trump framed the campaign as an effort to ensure that Iran never acquires a nuclear weapon, while also containing its missile program. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth articulated this in more operational terms: targeting Iran’s missile launch platforms, its defense industrial base, and its naval capabilities, alongside preventing any pathway to a nuclear weapons capability.

At the same time, the White House adopted a more expansive framing, describing the war’s objective as delivering overwhelming and decisive blows to eliminate the Iranian regime as a source of threat altogether.

At the same time, the White House adopted a more expansive framing, describing the war’s objective as delivering overwhelming and decisive blows to eliminate the Iranian regime as a source of threat altogether.

Official Israeli statements suggest that the war is aimed at removing what they describe as an existential Iranian threat. Within Israeli military thinking, that threat is increasingly defined not merely in terms of capabilities, but as embodied in the Iranian regime itself. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, has articulated the objective in more specific terms: eliminating Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile threat. In practice, this translates into targeting ballistic missile systems, air defense networks, command and control nodes, as well as weapons storage and production facilities, aimed at broadly degrading Iran’s overall military capacity. Such a strategy, Israeli officials suggest, could ultimately weaken the regime to the point of collapse, indicating that Israel’s war aims extend well beyond dismantling Iran’s nuclear program alone.

Official Iranian statements, which reflect Tehran’s stated objectives in this war, frame its military response as an exercise of legitimate self-defense of sovereignty and otherwise, as well as a refusal to yield to external pressure aimed at halting what it describes as its legitimate peaceful nuclear program.

At the strategic level, Iran’s response appears geared toward preserving deterrence and ensuring regime survival. Yet it is equally calibrated to avoid a full-scale war, an approach that favors controlled escalation over open-ended confrontation.

At the strategic level, Iran’s response appears geared toward preserving deterrence and ensuring regime survival. Yet it is equally calibrated to avoid a full-scale war, an approach that favors controlled escalation over open-ended confrontation.

A comparison of the three actors’ objectives reveals a clear strategic divergence: the United States is fighting to contain Iran politically, weaken it militarily, and prevent its transition into a nuclear power. Israel, however, is pursuing a more expansive goal, seeking to dismantle the structural foundations of Iranian power in order to impose a new political and security reality in the region, one aligned with its own vision of the Middle East. This, in turn, helps explain its position toward the Iranian regime itself. Iran, by contrast, views the war as existential, one of survival rather than choice. Although the United States and Israel have succeeded in inflicting significant material, human, and military losses on Iran, they have yet to achieve anything resembling strategic decisiveness, a prospect that remains elusive in the foreseeable future. Iran, for its part, has not only preserved its deterrent capacity and sustained its resilience, but has also worked to raise the regional and economic costs of the war, placing growing pressure on both Washington and Tel Aviv. It is a dynamic that the International Crisis Group has characterized as an expanding regional war, one that generates profound risks while leaving no actor in a position to claim it can bring the conflict to an end on its own terms.

At the military level, the outcome of this war cannot be measured solely by the scale of exchanged strikes. Rather, it hinges on each side’s ability to absorb losses, sustain operational capacity, and impose continuous military costs on its adversary. For Washington, the costs have extended beyond the battlefield. The United States has incurred human losses, whose full extent remains unclear, as well as operational strain affecting airpower and regional force deployment. At the same time, U.S. bases across the Gulf and other parts of the region are facing an expanding threat environment. Israel, too, has paid a military price unlike any it has faced in its previous wars. Iranian missiles have succeeded in penetrating Israel’s multi-layered missile defense systems, resulting in casualties and damage to a number of sites, including some considered strategically and militarily sensitive. In the first 100 hours alone, Israel is estimated to have expended munitions worth approximately $3.7 billion. As a result, replenishing defensive stockpiles has already become a central issue in Israel’s ongoing military calculus.

The United States and Israel have struck thousands of targets inside Iran, including facilities, launch platforms, elements of its defense industrial base, as well as naval assets such as ships and submarines. Iran has sustained heavy military losses across multiple domains, its command structure, missile stockpiles, nuclear sites, and maritime capabilities. Yet degrading Iran’s missile capabilities to the point of disruption has proven far more difficult. The United States and Israel have achieved clear offensive superiority, inflicting significant damage on Iran. Even so, that advantage has not translated into the paralysis of Iran’s ability to respond or endure.

Despite its losses, Iran has succeeded in shifting the war into a costly war of attrition, both defensive and offensive, imposing sustained pressure on its adversaries.

Despite its losses, Iran has succeeded in shifting the war into a costly war of attrition, both defensive and offensive, imposing sustained pressure on its adversaries.

It has done so in part by targeting U.S. bases and by straining Israel’s interceptor stockpiles, turning the element of time and cost into central variables of the conflict.

At the political level, the United States is facing mounting domestic and international challenges as a result of this war. Domestically, criticism has intensified, with the war increasingly described as a “war of choice” rather than one driven by immediate security necessity. A number of Democratic lawmakers have accused the administration of engaging in an unjustified conflict. At the same time, opposition has emerged within segments of the Republican camp, particularly among those aligned with the “MAGA” movement, who argue that the war primarily serves Israeli interests and question the rationale for the United States bearing its human and financial costs. Public opinion polls likewise point to rising anxiety over U.S. involvement in yet another Middle Eastern war, adding further pressure on policymakers in Washington.

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Externally, the United States has also come under criticism from some of its allies. Decisions to redeploy defensive systems to Israel, after withdrawing them from other regions, have raised concerns about declining protection levels in strategically sensitive areas, particularly in the Gulf. There are also growing indications of hesitation among a number of Western allies, including European members of NATO, to engage directly in military operations. This hesitation not only reflects widening divergences among traditional allies, but also raises deeper questions about the limits of U.S. capacity to assemble a broad coalition, and, more fundamentally, about the durability of its position as the system’s dominant power in an increasingly shifting international order.

Israel, too, is incurring both domestic and international political costs from the war, though not in identical ways. Domestically, the war has provided the government with a measure of security-driven legitimacy. A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, for instance, indicates rising confidence in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu among a majority of Jewish Israelis in managing the war. Yet divisions remain pronounced, between right and left, and between Jewish and Palestinian citizens within Israel. This rally-around-the-flag effect, however, is inherently fragile. The longer the war endures, and the higher its defensive costs and continued missile penetrations, the greater the risk that security-driven support will give way to political fatigue. That risk becomes even more acute if a gap widens between the government’s rhetoric and the war’s actual outcomes. Externally, Israel is operating within an increasingly cautious international environment. This is reflected in growing European and international calls for de-escalation and a return to diplomacy. It is also evident in the reluctance of some Western partners, such as Australia, to endorse Israel’s expansionary plans in Lebanon. Taken together, these dynamics suggest that the war is imposing a steadily rising political and diplomatic cost on Israel.

In Iran, the war has reinforced internal cohesion, particularly in the aftermath of the assassination of the country’s Supreme Leader, as Iranians rallied behind their leadership in the face of what is widely perceived as an existential threat. On the external front, while some Western states have voiced limited criticism of the U.S.-Israeli strikes, they have largely called for de-escalation and an end to the war, with most refraining from offering direct support to Washington and Tel Aviv. At the same time, a degree of political convergence has emerged with major powers such as China and Russia, both of which have adopted a critical stance toward the military escalation and emphasized the need for diplomatic solutions. Other regional actors, including Turkey, have maintained a more calibrated position, combining calls for restraint with a careful safeguarding of their own regional interests. Taken together, these dynamics suggest that Iran has not faced complete international isolation, but rather has operated within a complex web of evolving global interactions.

At the regional level, Iran’s expansion of strikes into Gulf states, justified by Tehran as targeting U.S. military and intelligence assets, has drawn criticism from those governments, which view such actions as violations of their sovereignty.

At the regional level, Iran’s expansion of strikes into Gulf states, justified by Tehran as targeting U.S. military and intelligence assets, has drawn criticism from those governments, which view such actions as violations of their sovereignty.

This comes despite Iran’s efforts in recent years to cultivate more stable and cooperative relations with those states, efforts that now risk being undermined. Yet, from a broader strategic perspective, the war may also be prompting Gulf states to reassess both the value and the cost of their partnership with Washington, as well as their perceptions of Israel as a long-term strategic actor in the region. In that sense, the conflict could open the door to a reconfiguration of relations among Middle Easten states, though not necessarily along the lines envisioned by Israel.

Taken together, the balance sheet of this war points to a complex and uneven distribution of costs and gains. The United States is facing mounting domestic and international political pressures that increasingly constrain its ability to manage the conflict. Israel, meanwhile, has secured short-term internal gains, but at the cost of growing diplomatic strain. Iran, for its part, has thus far succeeded in reinforcing internal cohesion and securing relative political gains on the international stage. Despite the regional pressures it continues to face, it has not been politically isolated; rather, it has repositioned itself within a broader and more fluid set of global alignments.

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At the level of consequences and risk, this war extends well beyond the immediate confrontation between its parties. It directly affects one of the most critical regions for global energy security and opens the door to escalation scenarios whose repercussions could span from the global economy to broader security balances. Economically, there are already strong indications that the conflict is pushing the world toward the brink of a new energy shock. Oil prices have already surpassed $100 per barrel, while global markets have been affected by disruptions in supply from the region, fueling concerns over inflation-driven slowdown. Europe, in particular, could face rapid energy shortages should the war persist. The impact is no longer confined to crude oil alone; it is increasingly spilling over into refined fuels, including jet fuel, diesel, and gasoline, broadening the scope of economic disruption.

The risks do not stop at oil prices; they extend to the critical infrastructure that makes the Gulf an exceptionally sensitive theater of conflict. Gulf states have warned Washington that strikes on Iran’s electricity grid could prompt Tehran to retaliate against desalination plants and energy facilities across the region.

Tehran, for its part, has issued warnings calling for the evacuation of energy facilities in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar following attacks on Iranian gas infrastructure. Reports have also pointed to disruptions, or the threat thereof, to liquefied natural gas production in Qatar, a development that could put at risk roughly one-fifth of global supply. Any further escalation could turn the region into a state of compounded paralysis, simultaneously affecting electricity, water, energy systems, and maritime transport. Major economies in both Asia and Europe have already begun to treat the conflict as a direct threat to their economic security, as reflected in sharp increases in electricity and gas prices.

The risk of escalation into a wider war remains real, but it is not inevitable. The longer the conflict persists, the greater the likelihood that it will become internationalized, whether through deeper diplomatic, military, and logistical involvement by major powers or through its entanglement with other ongoing crises. In that sense, the war’s costs may ultimately weigh more heavily on the international system than on its immediate participants, reshaping not only regional dynamics, but the broader architecture of global stability.

In sum, this war reveals less a clear victor than a gradual erosion in the ability of all its parties to achieve strategic decisiveness. While the United States and Israel have inflicted significant military and infrastructure damage on Iran, they have not succeeded in crippling its capacity to respond or in imposing an end to the conflict on their own terms. Iran, for its part, has demonstrated resilience, preserving a measure of deterrence and raising the costs of the war for its adversaries, without, however, securing a decisive advantage of its own. As economic pressures mount and regional and global risks continue to expand, the conflict increasingly resembles an open-ended struggle, one that is reshaping balances of power without granting any actor the means to resolve it. In this sense, its ultimate costs, political, economic, and security-related, are likely to outweigh any prospective gains, leaving open a fundamental question about the kind of regional and international order that will emerge in its aftermath.

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