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Let’s be honest, there are a lot of people (not limited to a political ideology, although concentrated on the far left and right, with a large number of more centrist doomers and preppers in between) who just want some major blow to happen to American hegemony so that something interesting might happen, domestic politics might be radically shook, etc etc.
Semi-astute political observers will note this is just a cross-party variant of the ‘heighten the contradictions of capitalism’ thesis beloved of lazy communists, namely that surely at some point everything has to blow up and then we can come to power. Who knows, maybe it will.
So no, America hasn’t suffered some devastating end of an imperial age blow (yet) in this conflict.
Nevertheless, as everyone keeps (correctly) telling you, simply restoring the prewar status quo but slightly worse (eg the Houthis are now emboldened and the Saudi-Emirati split doesn’t seem to be repaired even though that would be in America’s best interests, Iraq is still struggling to keep control of Shia militias etc etc) is not a successful outcome for a special military operation.
For example, if Putin agreed tomorrow to retreat to early-2022 lines of control in Ukraine, this would be transparently seen as an immense Ukrainian victory.
I think that in addition, there are a lot of people who don't want Trump to have a win. And a lot of people who don't want Israel to have a win.
I haven't been following the war super closely but it seems like Iran's nuclear program has been set back quite a bit and well as Iran's general military capabilities and ability to interfere with Persian gulf shipping.
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Iran is a defeated power with no ability to contest the Gulf let alone build nuclear weapons: that is simply not the status quo.
Before the war broke out, if we had predicted the above, everyone would have called it a crazy impossibility. It would take boots on the ground, war with Iran would consume thousands of American lives or crash the economy. There was a lot of discussion about how the CIA knew Iran would take the gulf and we couldn’t stop Iran and everybody knew that and this is proof that Trump didn’t have a plan.
Now that that’s over I hear about how this is just pre-war status quo.
No, I feel quite confident that this is better than status quo. America dismantled one of its greatest enemies anywhere on the planet in exchange for some temporarily-raised gas prices.
Not only that. The "pre-war status quo" was never an option to begin with.
The choices were these
Do something
Iran continues to trade cheap oil for Chinese weapons, builds out its ballistic missile program, and within 5 years has a nuke capable of reaching Europe
The idea that we could do nothing and there would be no consequences is just wrong.
There's actually a term for this. It's called "omission bias", treating the consequences of inaction as less blameworthy than the consequences of action.
On 1st January 2026, the United States operated a naval base in Bahrain. As long as they remain unable to do so, the Gulf is contested.
On 1st January 2026, the public position of the government of the United States was that the Iran no longer had a functioning nuclear programme - Trump claimed to have destroyed it in 2025. Before Trump started escalating against Iran back in his first term, the agreed position of Iran, the United States, Russia and China was that Iran would not enrich uranium beyond reactor grade, with a verification process in place. I think a non-nuclear-for-now Iran is entirely consistent with status quo ante for various values of status quo ante.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. America has not lost. America has not won. Iran has not lost. Iran has not won. This is what a draw looks like. It is the nature of a drawn war that under all likely scenarios for a negotiated peace before the midterms, both America and Iran are worse off than they would be if they had not fought. This is not a tabletop wargame where you can work out who "won" an indecisive battle by counting up the point values of the destroyed units.
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