Reuters: A war meant to break Iran could leave Tehran stronger, and Gulf exposed

An aggressor helicopter was shot down over Iran
Photo: publics

If President Donald Trump ends the war with Iran without a deal, he risks leaving Tehran with a stranglehold over Middle East energy supplies and Gulf Arab oil and gas producers grappling with the fallout of a conflict they did not start or shape, Reuters notes.

Instead of crushing Iran's rulers, it could leave them stronger, emboldened by surviving weeks of U.S.-Israeli attacks, firing on Arab Gulf states and rattling global energy markets by effectively shutting the Strait of Hormuz.

In an interview with Reuters before a scheduled address to the nation on Wednesday, Trump said the United States would end its war on Iran "pretty quickly" and signalled on Tuesday he could wind down the war even without a deal.

For Gulf states, an end to the war without clear guarantees on what would follow would pose a significant danger, leaving the region to absorb the consequences of a war that would be concluding to Iran’s advantage.

"The issue is the cessation of the war without a real outcome," said Mohammed Baharoon, director of Dubai's B'huth Research Center. "He (Trump) might stop the war, but that doesn't mean Iran will."

That asymmetry lies at the heart of Gulf concerns: that Iran could emerge from the war undefeated and with enhanced leverage – able to threaten shipping lanes, energy flows and regional stability – while Gulf countries are left to shoulder the economic and strategic costs of an unresolved conflict.

Baharoon said the erosion of freedom of navigation in the region would be a huge concern for the Gulf.

Iran, he said, could begin "playing the territorial waters card" and setting the rules in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for global energy supplies.

"This goes beyond Hormuz," he said. "Iran has put its hand on a pressure point of the global economy."

Tehran’s ability to disrupt energy flows, he said, sent a clear message that anyone contemplating future attacks on Iran should think twice.

Iran's oil weapon

U.S. and Israeli decision-makers did not go into the war blind to Iran’s ideological power, but appear to have underestimated its resilience, said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert.

The assumption, he said, had been that air dominance – achieved by destroying missile launchers, command centres and senior figures – would deliver freedom of movement and strategic containment. Instead, the Iranian system tightened rather than splintered, in part because it is sustained by parallel institutions designed to regenerate under pressure, he said.

Tel Aviv on fire after Iranian missile strikes
Photo: publics

Washington also misjudged Iran’s capacity for asymmetric retaliation, political analysts in the region say.

Tehran does not need to win the air war, it needs to impose ⁠costs, they say. Over decades, Iran has invested in identifying pressure points rather than matching force with force, and has come to regard energy assets and the Strait of Hormuz as central to its strategy.

By striking energy infrastructure and threatening the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has driven up oil prices, fuelled inflation around the world and shifted pressure onto the U.S. and its partners.

The objective, analysts say, was not battlefield victory but enforcing economic exhaustion. If the war becomes economically unbearable, survival itself becomes victory, they say.

"They haven’t started yet, but they have a vast capability to punish the United States and Israel," Ranstorp said, describing Iran as a hydra-like threat. That threat hangs over any U.S. exit. If the U.S. pulls back – and Israeli operations depend heavily on U.S. backing – Tehran will not see the outcome as defeat.

Iran still maintains half its missile launchers and drones, US assessment finds

More than a month into the joint US-Israeli war on Iran, the Iranian military is still in possession of about half of its missile launchers and half of its suicide drones, a US intelligence assessment said, first reported by CNN, ‘Middle East Eye’ quotes.

The assessment flies in the face of the language of obliteration that US President Donald Trump and the Israeli government has often used to describe Iran's capabilities, from the opening days of the war.

The US intelligence assessment also reportedly shows that Iran’s coastal defence cruise missiles are largely intact - a setup that is integral to policing the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has leveraged for global economic pressure.

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