The Full Verdict After a Month of War with Iran

A month of war with Iran: is everything going according to plan? No. Is there still a path to victory? Yes.

Exactly one month has passed since the war began.
And over this month the main thing has already become clear:
the gamble on a quick strike, the decapitation of the regime, and an internal eruption in Iran has failed.
The regime did not collapse.
The people did not take to the streets.
The government did not fall apart.
Instead, Iran quickly replaced some of the figures who were eliminated, strengthened its power center, and shifted to a war of attrition.

The losses over this month

On the American side, the picture looks like this:
13 soldiers killed and more than 300 wounded.
The strike on Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 27 alone added another 12 wounded, two of them in serious condition.

Israel:
at least 18 killed inside Israel as a result of Iranian strikes;
and another 4 IDF soldiers killed on the Lebanese front.
As for the number of wounded, there is no single open figure at the moment, but the number is already in the hundreds.

Iran:
between 1,900 and 3,500 or more dead, and at least 20,000 wounded, according to the IFRC and Reuters.
The gap is large, but Iran is an extremely closed country, so for now it is more honest to speak in ranges.

The economic damage

According to open estimates, Israel has already burned through at least $6-6.5 billion at the current pace of spending and will continue to spend roughly $1.6 billion a week.
Fitch kept Israel’s credit rating at A, but left the outlook negative, explicitly pointing to high war spending, a widening deficit, and political instability as major risks.

For the United States there is still no honest final figure for the full month, but it is already clear that the sums are enormous.
Reuters, citing the US Treasury Secretary, wrote that the first six days of the war alone cost more than $11 billion, and the Pentagon is already preparing a request for $200 billion in additional funding.

And even if one sets aside the direct military costs, the war has already hit the American economy from within:
fuel prices rose by about one dollar per gallon, the average price reached $3.98, the S&P 500 fell by 6.7%, and consumer confidence dropped to 53.3, the lowest level in three months.

For Iran, there is no single reliable dollar estimate of the damage, and there probably will not be for a long time.
But it is already clear that the damage is systemic:
jobs disappearing in the private sector,
homes and businesses destroyed,
shortages of basic goods,
and the paralysis of normal economic life.
Reuters separately reported 3.2 million internally displaced people inside Iran.
This is no longer just “a painful blow.” It is a deep rupture in the normal functioning of the state.

The whole world feels the shock as well.
Since the beginning of the conflict, Brent crude has risen by more than 50%, briefly passing $119 a barrel, while before the war it was around $75.
Roughly 20% of global oil and gas trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and about 11 million barrels per day have already been removed from the market.
Reuters’ base scenario now speaks of a price of $134.62, with a risk of rising to $153.85 in the event of further escalation.
This is no longer just a Middle Eastern problem. It is a global economic shock.

The key eliminations

The most prominent one is, of course, Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s Supreme Leader since 1989, the man who had the final word on every fundamental question of the regime, was killed on the first day of the war.
But already on March 9, the Assembly of Experts chose his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the new Supreme Leader.
In other words, even after such a blow, the system did not collapse. It simply reorganized itself.

The second most important elimination was Ali Larijani.
He was not just another veteran of the regime, but one of its main backstage architects, a former Speaker of Parliament, and at the time of his death also secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.
After his death, Iran quickly appointed another hardliner to that post: Mohammad Bagher Zolqadr.

And two more figures worth remembering:
Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the Revolutionary Guards, was killed in the opening stage of the war; Iran announced that Ahmad Vahidi replaced him.
Ali Shamkhani, one of Khamenei’s most important advisers, deeply involved in security and nuclear policy, was also killed on February 28.

High-profile eliminations. Impressive ones. Even brilliant ones.
But did our leadership know how to exploit them strategically?
Unfortunately, no.

The central military conclusion of the month

We are facing an enraged enemy that has adapted to a war of attrition, and it seems that no one really knows what to do with it next.

The United States and Israel hoped that decapitating the regime and striking its infrastructure would trigger an internal collapse.
That did not happen.
Instead of a mass uprising, we saw the rapid replacement of eliminated figures, the strengthening of the coercive apparatus, and the preservation of the system’s functionality.

Reuters also writes that the United States can confirm with certainty the destruction of only about one third of Iran’s missile arsenal.
Another part has been damaged or buried in underground facilities, but a significant portion remains operational.

But even partial destruction of the arsenal does not solve the problem if the regime itself survives.
As long as the current regime remains in power, the question is not whether Iran will be able to restore the threat, but how quickly it will do so.

And what is even more revealing is this:
Washington is already speaking less in the language of carrying the war through to a result and more in the language of leaving it through negotiations.
A 15-point peace proposal is already circulating through Pakistan.
Internal protests, contacts with China, and approaching elections are all making the future of American involvement in the war more uncertain with each passing day.

For Israel, that is bad news.
In this month, Israel did not manage to turn a strong opening into a clear strategic result.
The Iranian regime is alive.
Iran’s missiles and drones have not been fully destroyed.
Hezbollah is still fighting.
The Houthis have now officially entered this conflict as well.

In other words, it is not the noose around Iran that is tightening.
On the contrary, time is beginning to work against Israel.

And that is the conclusion of the month.

If the original plan was “strike, decapitate, wait for an internal explosion, and finish quickly,” then that plan has failed.
If the government had a Plan B, it is not visible right now.
And if there is no Plan B, someone else will write one for us.
The Americans, for example.
In the form, for example, of peace with the ayatollahs’ regime.

America is already looking for an exit, not victory at any cost.
That is not surprising.
What is surprising is something else:
with an unprecedented opportunity in its hands, unprecedented resources, and an extraordinary opening blow, our government has managed to lead us from a stunning and brilliantly organized beginning toward a possible strategic trap for years to come.

I still hope that Plan B exists.
Because even now Israel still has a chance to dramatically improve its security for decades ahead.
But that window is no longer opening wider.
It is closing.