Iran weathers US firestorm, raising prospect of a long war

US President Donald Trump targeted Iran, expecting a short, decisive military operation reminiscent of the US recent raids on Venezuela. Yet seven days into “Operation Epic Fury,” the conflict’s intensity, geographic spread, human costs and economic repercussions reveal a stark strategic miscalculation.

What Washington projected as an overwhelming but limited use of force has metastasized into a broader war dynamic that now threatens global energy markets, regional stability and long-term geopolitical balances.

When US and Israeli forces struck Iran on February 28, headline victories were announced: the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, massive bombardments of Iranian command infrastructure and claims of degraded missile and air defenses.

The bombardment was described in US military messaging as targeting ballistic missiles, command centers and naval assets, making it the largest combined US operation since the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Yet Iran’s response has confounded expectations. Tehran has not collapsed or fractured; rather, it has mounted an active and widespread retaliation, using ballistic missiles, drones, and proxy forces in Lebanon, Iraq and across the Gulf. Iran’s

UN ambassador reported that at least 1,332 Iranian civilians have been killed so far, with thousands more wounded, underscoring the conflict’s expanding human toll.

What was hoped to be a rapid decapitation of Iran’s leadership has not yet materialized. Tehran’s capacity to absorb blows while still launching counterattacks reflects a resilient, decentralized security architecture.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps and allied militias have continued to execute coordinated strikes on US bases and allied infrastructure in the region. At the same time, Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon have expanded clashes with Israeli forces.

The strategic miscalculation is most visible in the energy and economic domains. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s crude oil and significant volumes of liquefied natural gas pass daily, has become effectively impassable for commercial traffic. Oil flows are reported down by as much as 90%, and tankers are effectively stranded as insurers cancel war-risk coverage.

This has driven a dramatic spike in global energy prices. Leading investment banks like Goldman Sachs warn Brent crude could soon exceed $100 per barrel if disruption persists. Currently, benchmark prices have jumped into the high $80s and low $90s, a sharp surge in a matter of days that is already reverberating through global markets.

The consequences extend well beyond the energy sector. In the United States, the Dow and other major indices have fallen sharply as investors price in a prolonged conflict and its inflationary risks, with reported declines of over 450 points on key trading days.

Gasoline prices at the pump have already climbed, and forecasts suggest continued volatility could feed into broader inflationary pressures just as global economies struggle with post-pandemic recovery.

Global economic models suggest that even a sustained partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz, cutting just a few million barrels per day, could shrink global oil supply by several percentage points, potentially pushing Brent crude toward $130 per barrel if disruptions persist through the spring.

Such price levels would ripple through transportation, manufacturing and food costs worldwide, disproportionately hurting energy-importing economies in Europe and Asia.

On the diplomatic front, the clash is straining traditional alliances. Some Gulf Arab states that host US military bases have condemned Iranian attacks, even as they worry about being drawn into open conflict. Iran has recently said it would halt the attacks, if “not provoked.”

At the same time, Iran’s top leadership has publicly warned European countries against involvement, threatening retaliation if they support military escalation, deepening the risk of polarization across blocs that previously pursued cautious neutrality.

Another layer of complexity is emerging with great-power competition. Russia, which is already under sanctions related to its war in Ukraine, has reportedly shared intelligence with Iran on US military positions, complicating American operational security and broadening the geopolitical stakes.

Domestically, Trump’s framing of the conflict as a swift victory is losing traction. Early public opinion polls indicate that a majority of Americans now oppose continued military action in Iran and doubt that an unconditional surrender is attainable.

Congress’s bipartisan pressure to constrain war powers or seek clearer strategic objectives reflects deep unease within US political institutions.

These developments suggest a conflict that is not winding down but morphing into a protracted, multi-dimensional crisis. Far from a short, decisive campaign, the US-Israel war on Iran has triggered cascading consequences: escalating casualties, severe energy market disruption, economic volatility and deepening geopolitical fault lines.

This indicates not a misstep that can be reversed with greater military force but a fundamental strategic misread that has underestimated Iran’s resilience, the interconnectedness of regional dynamics and the broader costs of kinetic escalation.

The core misread of the conflict’s complexity now manifests not only in battlefield equations but in market graphs, shipping lanes and energy bill lines. This is a conflict in which kinetic gains are offset by geopolitical and economic pain points that ripple far beyond Tehran, Washington and Jerusalem.

In this sense, the war is testing assumptions about military power and geopolitical leverage in an era where interconnected systems multiply costs rapidly.

The author works as a research analyst at the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of his affiliated organization.