When Bombs Meet Resilience: Iran’s Strategic Triumph Over the US-Israel

When the United States and Israel launched their attack on Iran on February 28, they did not expect a war that would last 40 days.

In fact, their predictions did not even include a strong Iranian reaction against the Gulf countries, let alone the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Everyone was stunned by the scale of the Iranian response, even after losing its top leaders.

The Israeli plan, which relied on decapitation strikes, a few days of bombing, and an internal uprising, turned out to be a complete fiasco.

It proved that Israeli intelligence has perfected the art of assassinations but knows very little about Iran and is incapable of accurately predicting scenarios.

They assassinated the entire Iranian command structure, yet 4 to 7 pre-selected successors for each position were already in place and immediately took over. The decapitation operations had zero effect on Iran’s operational capacity. The absurdity of these actions reached new heights when they even tried to assassinate leaders of the Iranian opposition.

Iran opened a new front by attacking 17 targets across 8 countries, launching dozens of missiles several times a day. The Iranian reaction was so intimidating that no Gulf country dared to even consider retaliating, especially since they knew they had chosen a side by allowing Israel and the US to use their soil and airspace to attack Iran.

American military personnel were ordered to hide in luxury hotels, which also became Iranian targets. For every American strike launched from Gulf bases, Iran responded forcefully, causing an economic damage that, after 40 days, could reach $150 billion in those countries.

Iran absorbed the attacks with remarkable resilience and maintained daily launches of 30–50 missiles and 60–100 drones until the truce, keeping its navy and air force active even after 40 days of war, with very little military equipment lost for a conflict of this scale.

The iranians showed that any base built in its vicinity can be rendered inoperable whenever it decides to do so. More than that, it demonstrated that America is incapable of protecting its allies in a direct conflict with Iran, and for those who understand the message, this clearly applies to Asia as well.

The closure of the Strait and the political-economic pressure on Trump forced him to desperately seek an agreement with Iran. Trump and Netanyahu failed to achieve a single one of their objectives in this war. Iran now comes to the negotiating table in a much stronger position than its pre-war negotiators.

The United States has already mobilized an enormous military force, yet Iran continues to hold the cards.

It is Iran that decides which targets to strike in order to move the markets. It is Iran that decides whether and when to reopen the Strait, and whether it will close the other strait through the Houthis.

It was not the Chinese or the Russians, but the Iranians who were effectively sanctioning the United States.