There may be no winner in the war on Iran. But, although it is Iran that is under attack, they will not be the only losers. This war, fought without legal reason or political or security justification, will have myriad losers. Here are five.
The first loser of the war on Iran is the Iranians. Iran has an “inalienable right to a civilian program that uses nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. They signed the JCPOA nuclear agreement that closed all roads to a military nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) repeatedly verified that they were in full compliance. They were currently negotiating further voluntary limitations on their civilian nuclear program, which would have assured the world of the impossibility of diverting their civilian nuclear program to a military one. Nothing was illegal or unusual about Iran’s nuclear or missile programs.
But bombs fell on Iranians. The people of Iran live in daily terror. Their cities are being bombed, and their infrastructure and water desalination plants have been devastated. Nearly 20,000 civilian buildings have been damaged, including dozens of hospitals and schools. Their leader has been assassinated. Over 1,300 civilians, hundreds of them children, have been killed.
The second country that will pay a price for the war on Iran is Ukraine. Just as Russia is thought to be massing for a large late spring offensive, its war economy is being pumped full by the rising cost of oil; which was caused by the effective closing of the Strait of Hormuz and the resultant easing of sanctions on Russian oil, while Ukraine’s supply of weapons is being threatened. Russia will have the money to continue launching missiles and drones, and Ukraine will lack the missiles to defend against them.
The U.S. is firing an incredible number of interceptors to defend against Iranian missiles and drones. The war on Iran is using up the defensive weapons that would have been sent to Ukraine. “The biggest and most immediate impact will be on air defense,” Jennifer Kavanagh, Senior Fellow & Director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities, told me, since “Ukraine depends almost entirely on the United States for air defense, especially Patriot air interceptors and AMRAAMs.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, “We understand that a long war… and the intensity of the fighting will affect the amount of air defence equipment we receive.”
In this war of choice, the U.S. has made a bad choice, and it too will be a loser in this war. The U.S. will lose the war in Iran in four ways.
The first is in the disappointment of all of their goals. Trump likes strikes that are quick and precise and in which no Americans are killed. He has a strong aversion to quagmires and endless wars. Iran was intended to be such a strike. The hope was that the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would cause a quick collapse of the Iranian regime and that massive force would lead to a quick victory, total surrender and capitulation to all American demands.
The plan failed. The people did not rise up and take to the streets to bring down their government. The regime did not collapse. The appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the assassinated leader, as the new Supreme Leader presents instead a picture of survival and continuity.
The war is increasingly looking like it won’t be a quick one. The Trump administration is having difficulty defining an end goal or finding an off-ramp. They face the real possibility, unimagined when the war was being planned, of a long war from which the U.S. walks away; struggling to articulate a goal that presents the outcome as victory, leaving a destroyed Iran with the regime in place to rebuild its missile and civilian nuclear programs.
The second is the unforeseen damage the U.S. military has sustained. The Iranian military has shown an ability to survive and adapt that has surprised U.S. military planners. U.S. defense officials say the Iranian military is adjusting its tactics to adapt to American strategy. General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has acknowledged that “they’re adapting” and that the U.S. has had to adapt its plan in response.
Unlike the strike in Venezuela, in which Trump boasted that no American servicemen were killed, American soldiers have been killed and many have been wounded. At least seventeen U.S. sites have been damaged, including eleven military bases, and some of them have been damaged more than once. Iran has hit structures housing American military personnel. Iran has successfully targeted air defense and communications systems, including radars used to track and intercept Iranian missiles and drones.
Iran is not winning the battle. But their resilience and successes suggest that the Trump administration underestimated Iranian preparedness and the damage the U.S. military would sustain.
The rate at which the U.S. is using up air defense assets is also exposing vulnerabilities outside the Iranian theatre. Kavanagh told me that the war on Iran would disrupt not only the ability to support Ukraine, but “U.S. security assistance to other allies and partners in Europe and Asia.” She said that “other allies will also suffer, not only from delays in air defense shipments but also from issues like anti-ship and other precision-guided missiles.”
Iran has successfully targeted the United States’ Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, air defense systems that are used to intercept Iranian missiles. They claim to have struck at least four THAAD radars. The U.S. is struggling to replace them. They have already been forced to pull parts of a THAAD system from South Korea, over the concern and “opposition” of the South Koreans, in order to transfer them to Jordan to replace a THAAD radar that was damaged by a drone strike. The U.S. has also already had to transfer Patriot interceptor missiles from the Indo-Pacific and other regions to the Iranian theatre.
The U.S. is also suffering a loss of credibility. Twice, the U.S. has bombed Iran during negotiations, appearing to the world that they were treacherously using negotiations as a cover for preparing for war. Suspicion of America as a broker could harm future negotiations, including negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, and weaken America’s ability to project its influence diplomatically.
The fourth loser in this war is the environment. The effect on the environment is an understudied aspect of war. Wars clear forests and devastate and contaminate ecosystems. They account for 5.5% of greenhouse gas emissions.
But the war on Iran may prove unprecedented in its effect on the environment. The March 7 bombing of Iranian oil facilities has caused black rain, or raindrops full of oil and pollutants, leading the World Health Organization to issue a warning that toxic pollutants in the air could lead to respiratory problems. The WHO says there was a “massive release” of toxic compounds into the air. The “very, very toxic” pollution can lead to “long-term consequences” and can even be fatal. There is also the risk of contamination to plants, soil, air and water.
The other serious loser in the war on Iran is the world, international law and nuclear non-proliferation. The bombs dropping on Iran finally nullified the pretense of international law. It exposed the hypocrisy of American hegemony and damaged America’s leadership. The U.S. launched an illegal war on Iran while condemning Russia for its war on Ukraine. While Iran has implored the United Nations to enforce international law, with few exceptions, the Western world has been silent. Quick to arm Ukraine, the Western world has barely quivered as the U.S. defies international law and bombs Iran. The leader of the international order has written the eulogy for international law, and has openly moved on to a rules-based order that is nothing more than an instrument of U.S. foreign policy.
The actions of the U.S. and its European partners have also irreparably damaged nuclear non-proliferation. It is not Iran that violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): it is the United States. Iran did not fail the NPT because Iran is within its rights to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. The NPT failed Iran by not condemning the bombing of Iran and its nuclear sites, and by collapsing the non-nuclear umbrella that promised to protect Iran.
Iran was bombed while being in complete compliance with the NPT. Those bombs blew up Iran. But they also blew up international law and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There will be no winner in this war. But there will be many losers.
