The United States boasts military superiority over Iran but has emerged as the strategic loser in the five-week conflict, with gains limited to a fragile two-week ceasefire and conditional passage through the Strait of Hormuz, according to analysts.
Shortly before US President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to meet his demands or face destruction of its civilian infrastructure, the US and Iran entered a two-week ceasefire agreement mediated by Pakistan. Beijing reportedly intervened at the last minute to get Tehran to the negotiation table.
Iranian and American delegations will meet in Islamabad on Friday for their first in-person dialogue since the war started on February 28, working from Iran’s 10-point peace proposal.
The plan was reportedly passed to the White House via Pakistan. The list published by Iranian state media included some conditions that Washington has previously rejected.
It included the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions on Iran, US military withdrawal from the Middle East, release of frozen Iranian assets and a UN Security Council resolution making any deal binding.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council framed the ceasefire as a “historic victory”, claiming the enemy had suffered an “undeniable and crushing defeat”.
Trump, meanwhile, in an interview with Agence France-Presse, called the agreement a “total and complete victory. 100 per cent. No question about it.”
In a social media post on Wednesday, the American leader said that much of the US’ 15-point proposal had been agreed to and that Washington would discuss “tariff and sanctions relief” with Iran.
Yet, Trump also said countries supplying military weapons to Iran would face a 50 per cent tariff on goods sold to the US.
Between the two sides, analysts saw the US as the loser.
According to Zhu Yongbiao, a professor at the school of politics and international telations at Lanzhou University, Iran’s conditions “are much more stringent than those offered before the war. From this perspective, this war is actually a failure for the US.”
Washington failed to achieve regime change in Tehran – a major goal Trump quickly abandoned – while Iran retained control of the Strait of Hormuz, the conflict’s most strategic asset.
In addition, the US and Israel expended many of their sophisticated air-defence missiles to intercept far cheaper Iranian drones and projectiles.
Zhu said Washington’s “severe miscalculations” about Iran’s capabilities as well as America’s own strength and Israel’s influence had contributed to its failure.
In particular, the initial “seemingly clear” goal of regime change was “quite vague in practice”, he added, and the US was neither prepared for nor had contingency plans for a protracted war when its primary goal stalled.
Ma Bo, an associate professor at Nanjing University’s school of international studies, described America’s problem as one of strategic design rather than tactical execution.
Washington set unrealistic goals and kept shifting them during the conflict, leaving itself with no clear way out, Ma said.
“Despite its military superiority, Washington also failed to ensure the stable transit of the Strait of Hormuz, instead letting Tehran weaponise the chokepoint and redirect economic pressure onto global markets,” he added.
“The US controlled the battlefield but not the leverage point that actually dictates how the conflict plays out.”
Traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 per cent of the world’s oil and gas usually travels, came to a virtual halt after the war began.
Following the ceasefire announcement, Tehran said safe passage through the narrow artery would be “possible via coordination with Iran’s armed forces and with due consideration of technical limitations”.
And Trump in a social media post stated that the US “will be helping with the traffic build-up” in the strait, without detailing how that would happen.
Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, Iran’s ambassador to China, said in Beijing on Wednesday that Tehran would take measures to let ships pass through, but cautioned that whether it could be opened entirely would depend on the results of the negotiations.
Zhao Minghao, a professor at the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, said the US was “paying an enormous price” for its self-chosen war.
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was unimpeded before the war, and Trump’s urgent bid to reopen it now “makes him someone trying to solve a crisis of his own making”, Zhao added.
“The Trump administration was drawn into a quagmire. The war is fracturing his political coalition, damaging American credibility and exposing cracks in the US alliance system.”
With US midterm election campaigning heating up, Trump’s approval ratings have hit record lows due to the war, putting his Republican Party’s narrow congressional majorities at risk.
Trump has also been criticised for breaking his “no foreign war” pledge. Soaring oil and gas prices have further frustrated Americans.
Some analysts said Trump’s decision to wage war stemmed from his being emboldened by the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro in January. That mission lasted less than three hours and was hailed as an exceptionally fast and precise targeted extraction.
Zhang Chuchu, deputy director of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University, said Trump was overconfident in US military superiority, with the swift capture of Maduro giving him a false sense of what was achievable.
Early optimism stemmed from the US advantage in intelligence and AI capabilities, but Trump “underestimated Iran’s resilience”, she added.
Tehran has adopted a “mosaic defence”, a decentralised tactic allowing regional commanders or cells of military units to conduct covert drone and missile launches from its vast territory.
After many of its top leaders were killed, Iran avoided regime paralysis through a layered succession system. The late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had reportedly instructed senior Iranian officials to predesignate as many as four successors for every major military and political post.
However, Guo Hai, executive dean of the Institute of Public Policy at South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, argued it was far too early to write off America as the loser in the conflict.
“For Washington, prolonged inaction risks allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, potentially a more significant strategic setback,” he said.
Guo described Washington and Tehran as fundamentally lacking trust, with Washington unable to confirm that Iran had lost its nuclear capability and Tehran not confident that Washington would cease its military hostilities.
Preventing a nuclear-armed Iran remains a priority for Washington.
Before the latest strikes, Tehran held an estimated 440kg (970lbs) to 460kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent – a short technical step away from the 90 per cent threshold required for weapons-grade material.
But intelligence agencies and experts doubted Iran possessed the capability to make such a bomb, especially after US-Israeli strikes last year demolished much of the country’s nuclear infrastructure.
More nuclear facilities have been hit during the war, though Iran still has its enriched uranium stockpiles.
Trump previously played down the threat, saying he “did not care” about the stockpiles because they were underground, where satellites could track them.
Zhang called the new ceasefire “very fragile”, with Trump reserving the possibility of renewed strikes.
“Trump has not actually withdrawn his forces,” she said. “This suggests he is using this two-week window to negotiate while simultaneously preparing for ground mobilisation and deployment. He hasn’t given up on that front.”
US troop levels in the Middle East are still high. Recent deployments of thousands of additional soldiers and Marines have pushed the total American military presence in the region to more than 50,000 personnel.
Last week, Washington deployed the USS George H.W. Bush to join two other aircraft carrier strike groups already stationed in the region.
Ma of Nanjing University said Israel had become the pivotal variable in any ceasefire arrangement. If Israel was to carry out unilateral strikes on Iran, Washington could be dragged back into sustained conflict despite seeking de-escalation.
One scenario deserved close attention, Ma added: the conflict gradually shifting “from US-Iran to Israel-Iran confrontation, with America stepping back to provide intelligence, weapons and diplomatic support behind the scenes”.
Should that happen, he said, any US-Iran ceasefire deal would be fundamentally hollowed out. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
