As of the time of writing, in the first days of the holy month of Ramadan, the scales of war and peace are tilting towards a decisive clash between the US and Israel on one side, and Iran on the other. This is the conclusion to be drawn from information obtained by Axios and other media outlets.
The first indicator is the massive display of weaponry and military muscle-flexing in the Arabian Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, accompanied by strident and belligerent rhetoric and ultimatums. The second is the likelihood that the US-Iranian negotiations in Geneva will fail, despite the many concessions Tehran has offered, proposing to suspend uranium enrichment operations for years, after which to return to an arrangement permissible under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran also reportedly offered incentives regarding oil and mineral extraction deals valued at up to a trillion dollars. Thirdly, Iranian fortification construction, military mobilisation and other preparations indicate that it is digging in for an immanent conflagration – a prognosis supported by Israeli war preparations and US statements that it is gearing up for a campaign that could last several weeks, rather than 12 days, as occurred in June.
On the surface, the military balance of power appears to favour a swift resolution in the event of a facedown. Theoretically, the US, taking advantage of its naval bases in the Gulf, would bombard Iran, starting with Iranian Armed Forces and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps positions, missile bases, and uranium enrichment facilities. However, this scenario suffers many weaknesses. Firstly, it presumes that Iran has learned nothing from the brief June war and that Iranian intelligence and security can still be easily breached, facilitating the debilitating blows that Trump has vowed to deliver. Lending weight to this thinking is the perception that the Iranian domestic front is vulnerable in the light of the recent anti-regime protests and the repression that left thousands dead and wounded, fuelling hatred and thirst for revenge against the regime.
Such calculations overlook two factors. The first is Iran’s deep civilisational heritage and long-established sense of nationhood. This is a crucial trait of the modern nation-state – one conducive to a high degree of social cohesion and national alignment when the country is under attack, regardless of the ideological orientation of the political system. The second is that some of the characteristics of the Iranian ruling elite invite a comparison with the case of Afghanistan: 20 years after being toppled by the US, the Taliban succeeded in returning to power. Iranian decision-makers, for their part, will recall this, along with the fact that the US has not won a war decisively since World War II. The Korean war left Korea permanently divided, and South Vietnam ended up being absorbed into the communist North as Washington’s allies fled from the rooftop of the US Embassy in Saigon.
The decisive factor in the impending war will be whether the US and Israel can replicate the 12-day war – in other words, keep the next round short. That is a gamble, given that only a few months have passed since that episode, which triggered a regional escalation in which Shiite alliances, joined by Sunni forces from Afghanistan, raced to support Tehran. A wider regional spiral would generate substantial pressure on Washington, especially from Trump’s influential MAGA base, which would bristle at the onset of another “forever war”.
Duration, then, will be the key to Iran’s strategy. The country’s population of 92 million and territorial size of two million square km gives the Iranian regime capabilities unavailable to either the communists in Vietnam or the Islamists in Afghanistan. That said, Iran will face a severe test, which will reflect the revolutionary capacities on which the regime has relied since the victory of the Iranian Revolution 45 years ago. The period since then has brought significant advances in its military industries, including missiles and drones – aerial and maritime alike – all of which will be directed at US aircraft carriers.
The coming war concerns not only the US, Israel, Iran, and its allies but also Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, Qatar, and Turkey – who have therefore been working assiduously to prevent it. Their efforts have led to negotiations in Muscat and Geneva. Yet the outcome remains constrained by a reality in which Iran is bound by its ideology and allies, while the US remains tied to Israel by an unbreakable bond.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 26 February, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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