This War Has Not Gone Putin’s Way

Mr. Schmemann, an Opinion writer, is a former Moscow bureau chief of The Times.

The Iran war has been an economic windfall for Russia, pushing oil prices sky-high and loosening sanctions. But if the Russian economy is having a brief respite, the battering of Iran by the United States and Israel marks yet another in a series of recent blows to the great-power role President Vladimir Putin so cherishes.

Iran has been Russia’s closest partner in the Middle East, supplying Moscow with drones for use in Ukraine and a critical route to evade sanctions over its war there. The large-scale damage to Iran’s economy and military comes on the heels of the capture of the Kremlin’s South American ally Nicolás Maduro in an American raid on........

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