Washington's Iran gamble is already backfiring

There is something deeply revealing about the way Washington has been speaking about this war. The language has been triumphant, the tone self-congratulatory, and the assessments divorced from reality.

- BY MD KAWSAR UDDIN

US-Israeli attacks on Iran.

Oil refineries bombed, missile launchers taken out, the Iranian navy declared finished and yet, nearly two weeks in, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, oil is trading at nearly $120 a barrel, and the regime in Tehran has not only survived but appears to be consolidating around the crisis.

This was never going to be the quick, clean victory that was advertised. The core problem is simple: the US went to war against a country it did not fully understand.

The thinking in Washington went something like this: hit Iran hard enough, destroy enough of its infrastructure, and moderates will emerge from the rubble ready to cut a deal. Iran would pivot away from Russia and China, oil would flow freely again, and the region would reshape itself in the US’ favour. Some policymakers argued that sustained military pressure was the only remaining lever to prevent long-term nuclear escalation. But the execution so far has revealed a fundamental misreading of what Iran actually is.

Iran is a civilisational state with institutional depth, a security apparatus that shows no signs of internal fracture, and a population that, whatever its feelings about the clerical regime, does not want to see the country dismembered by foreign powers. Persians are roughly half the population, but the Baluch, the Azeris, the Kurds, and every major ethnic group harbours a fierce attachment to Iranian statehood. When you bomb a nation, you don’t fracture it. Often, you fuse it.