No victory, no defeat: Iran war pauses with fragile freeze

After 108 days, thousands dead and hundreds of billions of US dollars stripped from the global economy, the US-Israel war on Iran has ended – for now.

Not with victory. Not with defeat. With a freeze.

The United States and Israel assassinated Iran’s supreme leader and many of its top officials, then went on to degrade the country’s air defences, military infrastructure and industrial capacity.

But they could not make Tehran capitulate, abandon its nuclear know-how, dismantle the Revolutionary Guards, surrender its missile programme or break with Hezbollah and the Houthis.

“Tactical success did not translate into strategic success,” said Andreas Krieg, an associate professor of defence studies at King’s College London and a Middle East risk consultant.