Six months after Donald Trump launched his war on Iran, the regime survives, the Strait of Hormuz remains contested, and Washington is struggling to turn military might into a political victory.
Trump and his supporters can make a credible case that Iran has been severely damaged. Its air force and much of its navy have been destroyed; its nuclear program has been set back; senior leadership has been decapitated; its economy is in terrible shape. But none of that necessarily translates into political leverage.
What happens next? Tehran remains defiant and Washington faces dangerous questions: how do you end a war when military power cannot deliver political capitulation? And has America reached its limits in Iran? Has the Iran conflict fundamentally changed the strategic equation in Ukraine?
Patrick Cockburn is columnist with the I paper in London.
Tom Switzer is a journalist and broadcaster who has been a prolific commentator on politics and international affairs. His writing and commentary have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times (international), The Australian, and across ABC and News24 (formerly Sky News), where he has been a regular presenter and panellist. For 30 years, since 1995, he has worked at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, the Australian Financial Review, The Australian, the London-based Spectator magazine, and the Sydney-based Centre for Independent Studies, which he headed from 2017 to 2025. He is the host of Switzerland, a long-form interview series exploring global politics, modern history, and the ideas shaping the world.
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