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The war launched by President Donald Trump — cheered on with theatrical confidence by Benjamin Netanyahu — was never a war for the Iranian people, nor a strategic effort to reshape the Middle East, nor even a coherent attempt to “deter” Iran. It was a campaign without a defined end-state, without a political vision, and without an exit strategy. Predictably, it ended as a lose–lose conflict, with none of the objectives Trump promised ever materializing: the theocratic regime did not fall, Iran’s regional project was not neutralized, and its power was not diminished in any meaningful or lasting way.
As Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights, put it bluntly: “This war was never about the rights of the Iranian people… the authorities used it as a pretext to intensify repression.” A woman in Tehran, identifying herself only as Sima for fear of reprisal, offered an even starker assessment: “Any peace with the Islamic Republic is a peace with my tormentors.”
