Has Iran lost? Trita Parsi & Stephen Wertheim

It’s been more than six months into the war with Iran, and the question that matters is becoming harder to avoid: who is actually losing this war?

  The conventional wisdom has been that Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran was a catastrophic strategic blunder — that Tehran could absorb the punishment, close the Strait of Hormuz and inflict enormous economic costs on America and its allies.

But the picture now looks rather more complicated. Iran has failed to shut Hormuz completely, the global economy has proved remarkably resilient, and the American naval blockade is severely restricting Iran’s oil exports and squeezing its already fragile economy.

Is the strategic clock now ticking against Tehran? Has the balance of the war begun to shift?  Is Iran running out of time? Or does Washington still face the greater strategic and political costs? And what does this war tell us about the future of American power, the Middle East and the cycle of military intervention that has defined U.S. foreign policy since the 9/11 terror attacks 25 years ago?

Trita Parsi is from the Quincy Institute and Stephen Wertheim is from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Both are based in Washington, DC.