The New Forever War: Why America and Iran Fight On Without Victory

Foreign Affairs | Ali Vaez

The United States and Israel launched joint military strikes against Iran on February 28, 2026, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and disrupting regional infrastructure, yet failing to force regime collapse in Tehran. Iranian forces swiftly retaliated by striking American installations in the Persian Gulf, seizing operational control of the Strait of Hormuz, and targeting commercial shipping across the Middle East.

Decades of institutional resilience allow the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to absorb leadership losses while passing economic damage onto the civilian population through reduced state subsidies. Neither side can achieve absolute victory. While Washington utilizes coastal blockades, sanctions, and standoff missile strikes to suppress Iranian nuclear enrichment, Tehran leverages Iraqi militias, Houthi forces, and maritime interdiction to sustain regional escalation. Following the rapid breakdown of a June memorandum of understanding over Hormuz transit protocols, both belligerents remain locked in a sustainable, long-term war of attrition.

Comment

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force has institutionalised a doctrine of distributed saturation strikes to neutralize coalition air superiority. By pairing salvo launches of Fateh-110 ballistic missiles with low-cost Shahed-136 loitering munitions, Iran forces defender networks to expend expensive interceptors like the MIM-104 Patriot. This asymmetric posture demonstrates that degrading senior leadership fails to neutralize pre-delegated, decentralised strike architectures.

This doctrinal shift imposes severe long-term inventory friction on U.S. Central Command, which must continually allocate SM-6 and PAC-3 interceptors to defend forward sites. Over time, this defensive expenditure depletes RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 stocks vital for United States Indo-Pacific Command operational plans.

Strategic Question for Discussion

Which carries more weight in long-term theater defense — the speed at which Iran can churn out Shahed-136 munitions or the rate at which U.S. Central Command depletes PAC-3 interceptor stockpiles — and what determines that tipping point?

The available evidence points toward interceptor expenditure as the immediate operational bottleneck, given the extreme cost asymmetry between cheap loitering drones and advanced air defense missiles. While Iranian production facilities face ongoing interdiction risks, the consumption rate of PAC-3 interceptors rapidly compresses U.S. magazine depth across adjacent commands. This trajectory indicates that industrial attrition will force shifts in defensive posture long before drone supply chains collapse.

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