The fog of war and the myth of Iranian victory

It is remarkable that in the information age, we know so little of what is happening in the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran. The little that does emerge is thin, contradictory, and heavily biased one way or another. Traditional media have long abandoned hard investigative journalism in favour of delivering partisan messages, overtly signalling their political ideology and affiliation. Pro-Trump media outlets have insisted the war was over soon after it started. The anti-Trump movement argues that the US lost even before firing the first shot, and disregards the strategic extent of the military damage inflicted on Iran. Social media has led the anti-war charge and rapidly overtaken mainstream news outlets in peddling an anti-Israel narrative at every turn. 

Stranger still is the emerging alliance between elements of the popular right and the left. American media personalities Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, and Candace Owens have now allied with the Young Turks Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian to deliver a tirade of conspiracy theories, from asserting that Jews are Khazar converts to the myth that a powerful Jewish lobby is manipulating US President Donald Trump to fight a war on Israel‘s behalf. John Mearsheimer, a renowned political scientist, has abandoned all pretence of objectivity as he accuses Israel of “genocide” and supports Russia in the Ukraine war. Before 7 October, most of these personalities were considered mainstream and delivered rational, if opposing, viewpoints that seldom crossed the borders of reasonableness. Gone are the days when one tuned in to a broadcast to get a balanced point of view that entertained both sides of the spectrum. 

Adding to the thick fog of war is the complete Iranian internet blackout. Coupled with conflicting statements from a decapitated leadership, obviously damaged and desperate, means we have no clear picture of what’s going on in Iran. The regime regularly issues contradictory statements within minutes of each other. Agreements reached at peace negotiations are countermanded hours later. There seems to be at least two centres of power, residing in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the theocratic government. It’s not even clear whether the US knows who it’s negotiating with. Into this knowledge vacuum step the myriad pundits who have no clue about the science or history of warfare and haphazardly peddle their warped and inane versions of what victory looks like. The latest nonsense is “Iran has only to survive to win the war”. 

Arguments tend to rest on two assumptions. The first is that the US is under intense time pressure and must achieve a rapid victory. The second is that Iran can endure until Washington grows tired of the conflict. Neither assumption survives first-principles analysis. Many observers argue that Iran is winning because it can throttle world energy supplies through the Straits of Hormuz. They misunderstand the strategic geography of the war. The Straits of Hormuz are not primarily the US’s lifeline. They are Iran’s. If Hormuz is closed, the greatest pressure falls not on Washington, but on Tehran and Beijing. Broadcaster Piers Morgan captured the irony when he asked on one of his programmes whether Trump should have anticipated that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz. The real question is the opposite. Did Iran anticipate that a closure of Hormuz would trap its own economy? Here is the central point that much of the commentary misses. Iran isn’t fighting from a position of endless strategic depth. It’s fighting while under immense economic strain, under heavy bombardment, and with badly damaged command-and-control structures. 

Israel has a different objective and timeline than its ally, the US. On 8 October 2023, one day after Hamas infiltrated the Israeli border and massacred 1 200 people, the Jewish nation was in a precarious position. The society was divided against itself as left and right-wing politicians battled for the soul of the nation. The military stood in disarray after failing to protect its citizens in a monumental intelligence failure. Rockets poured over the border from Gaza, and the threat of more rockets from Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran was a distinct possibility. Across the Golan, Israel faced a hostile Syrian regime propped up by Hezbollah and ready to seize any opportunity to launch an attack. The Abraham Accords, promising a lasting peace in the Middle East, lay in tatters as Iran and its proxies proudly announced that Israel, isolated and weakened, was surrounded by a ring of fire. 

After two and a half years of bloody warfare, Israel has managed to extricate itself from a precarious position and dismantle, one by one, the existential threats it faced on 7 October. It has comprehensively dismantled the ring of steel. It has subdued Hamas, rescued the hostages, and suffered not one missile from Gaza for months. Mossad decapitated Hezbollah in an unprecedented intelligence operation, and the Israelis now occupy a buffer zone deep inside Lebanese territory. For the first time in decades, Lebanon and Israel have sat down for peace talks, and the prospects of a Lebanon free of Iran and Hezbollah have never been better. A new friendlier regime has replaced the Assad dictatorship, and the Syrian border is more secure than it’s been in recent memory. The Houthis remain isolated in the wake of the devastating US-Israel attacks on Iranian military sites. Iran has almost ceased to pose a military threat to Israel and its Arab neighbours as relentless airstrikes have downgraded its missile/drone capability. Iranian leadership and its command-and-control structures are all but destroyed. Exquisite intelligence and stunning operations have extinguished the ring of fire. The opportunities for Iran to develop nuclear weapons in the wake of the war have evaporated. The prospects of revitalising the Abraham Accords are brighter than ever after Iran turned on its Arab neighbours with its hordes of missiles and drones. Israel can claim a massive victory. 

A deep lesson is that much of the “expert” commentary surrounding this war confuses emotional symbolism with sound scientific analysis. Iran surviving isn’t the same thing as Iran winning. Regimes often survive after suffering a devastating strategic defeat. First principles matter. They cut through propaganda, slogans, and emotional reactions. When one examines the war through the basic realities of operational success, economics, geography, command structures, and strategic objectives, the fashionable claim that “Iran only has to survive to win” begins to look less like analysis and more like wishful thinking. 

• Dr David Brock Katz is a research fellow at Stellenbosch University in the faculty of military science. He has published three books and numerous academic articles dealing with aspects of South African military history and military doctrine.