August 14, 2026
Iran and the U.S. Are Trapped In a War Neither Knows How to Win
This article was originally published in Bloomberg.
Operation Midnight Hammer, the first-ever American strike on Iran, in June 2025, lasted 37 hours and saw the United States drop 420,000 pounds of explosives on the country’s uranium-enriching facilities. Once it was over, President Donald Trump declared that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.”
Both the US and Iran have adopted military strategies that can prevent defeat but cannot produce a decisive victory.
Just eight months later, the US returned to war. Operation Epic Fury, a campaign waged alongside Israel, launched a broader wave of airstrikes against Iranian targets. It has turned into an almost six-month war between Iran and the US that is still ongoing — and currently shows little sign of ending soon.
Read the full article in Bloomberg.
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