UNI ANALYSIS
Jayanta Roy Chowdhury
The Iran-US war, which broke out on Saturday, may well extend far longer than the short decisive strike that many were hoping for with the killing of Iran’s two top leaders as the Iranian power structure is displaying greater resilience than the West had hoped it might be able to display.
Beginning on Saturday, the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes across Iran, hitting nuclear-linked facilities, military infrastructure, naval assets, and senior leadership targets. Iran responded swiftly with its own missile and drone attacks on US bases in the Gulf, killing three American soldiers and wounding several others, prompting Washington to vow retaliation.
As of March 2, the conflict is only days old, but its trajectory already points to far wider risks for a longer-than-bargained-for conflict.
“Iranians have a long history of resistance and a decentralised power structure. Tehran has a vast array of missiles and drones, military factories that increase production. Besides, there are indications that Russia and China have opened up their supply lines. I fear it will be a longer war than many believe,” Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha (Retd), former Flag-Officer-Commanding Western Fleet, told UNI.
Experts point out that the lack of clear ‘war aims’ on the part of the US could create more difficulties in bringing about a quick peace. The Americans have kept shifting the goal posts from de-nuclearising Iran to neutralising Tehran’s missile programme to regime change.
“A regime change is difficult as Iran can quickly change leaders, having a large pool of military and civilian leadership, backed by a civil-defence bureaucracy,” pointed out Maj Gen Alok Deb, former Deputy Director General of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA), in a conversation with UNI.
Notions that the Iranian people, who have in the past risen in protests against the regime, may take advantage of the missile strikes killing top leaders may also be far-fetched believe experts. They pointed out that given that Iran is an ancient nation with an inbuilt sense of nationalism, its people may not wish to trade stability, albeit authoritarian, for the kind of chaotic regime change seen earlier in West Asia.
Besides the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, may have made any regime-change military mission more complicated and challenging. In a social media post, noted strategic analyst Brahma Chellaney pointed out that the killing may have tapped “directly into Shiite concepts of martyrdom and resistance”, which draws on the Ashura narrative of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein at Karbala.
Chellany feels, “Tehran is seeking to transform public grief into a binding 'blood debt.” Dissent can now be branded complicity with the killers of the supreme leader.
“This dynamic complicates any hope of rapid regime collapse. Rather than weakening the system, decapitation risks militarizing it. After Khamenei’s death, Iran could drift toward a more explicit military theocracy.”
At its core, the danger lies in the logic of revenge. Iran’s leadership has long framed deterrence through retaliation, whether directly or via regional proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen.
If Tehran concludes that the US strikes are an existential threat to it, the Islamic nation may abandon the calibrated retaliation that it has displayed for a broader escalation. That could include sustained missile exchanges, including possibly against oil assets, which in turn would mean retaliatory attacks on its own oil production.
In such a scenario, oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, already a bare trickle, may stop altogether, turning the crisis into a global threat.
US President Donald Trump has publicly suggested a four-week operational timeline while signalling that strikes will continue until American objectives are met. However, the messaging is fuzzy as Trump has also spoken of a willingness to do a deal with Iran’s new leadership.
Iranian officials, for their part too, have sent mixed signals, indicating willingness to talk in principle while warning that negotiations are unlikely with a trigger to their head. The result is a familiar but dangerous tit-for-tat dynamic, where each side claims to seek de-escalation while preparing for the next blow.
“We believe in our modelling that Iran will be selective in its attacks and will not give up easily,” said Adm. Sinha. Complicating the picture further is the role of China. Reports from January suggest that Beijing may have delivered a substantial shipment of military equipment to Iran, with as many as 16 large cargo aircraft landing over three days. While details remain unconfirmed, analysts do not rule out that further deliveries could include missiles, drones, or other advanced systems.
Still, the conflict is not preordained to spiral into a regional war. Several constraints argue against an open-ended campaign. The United States faces political limits at home, operational strain on its regional bases, and the reluctance of Gulf partners to be drawn into a prolonged confrontation.
Similarly, casualties, destroyed assets, and domestic pressures in Iran may push decision-makers toward negotiations despite feelings that revenge must be extracted.
The war ultimately may become a function of ammunition reserves on either side, unless the world at large, which fears being hit by higher energy prices, disruptions in trade and prolonged uncertainty, besides the risks of a nuclear conflagration, steps in and tries to get both sides to agree to a quicker peace rather than a longer war. UNI JRC AAB