Iran losing ‘no war, no peace’ bet as it battles to survive just 5 years after it hit US bases

Five years after Iran’s carefully calibrated missile strikes on American bases in response to the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, Tehran now finds itself engulfed in the full-scale war it had long sought to avoid.

Back in 2020, the Islamic Republic had launched one of its most significant attacks on US forces but importantly, it was choreographed to prevent escalation. Iran quietly relayed its intentions to Washington through indirect channels, ensuring there were no fatalities and allowing both sides to step back from the brink of open conflict.

Iran’s leadership, particularly Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had relied for decades on a strategy of calibrated aggression, projecting strength through threats, proxies and covert operations, without provoking a direct confrontation. But analysts say that strategic posture has now crumbled under the weight of miscalculation and hubris, as Iran enters a war it neither expected nor is equipped to win.

“Iran only has bad options now,” Ellie Geranmayeh of the European Council on Foreign Relations told the Financial Times. “Khamenei stuck to this idea of ‘no war, no peace’ for too long. It’s been untenable for years.”

Since launching a surprise wave of strikes on Iran, Israel has claimed the upper hand—decimating missile sites, striking nuclear facilities, and killing key military figures while maintaining total air superiority. Iran continues to fire missiles at Israel, but its response has failed to shift the military balance.

The shift came in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 Hamas assault on Israel. Though Iran claimed no involvement, Israel viewed the attack—which killed 1,200 and took 250 hostages—as part of a broader Iranian-backed effort to destabilise the region. Israel responded by targeting Iran and its proxies with force and frequency never seen before.

Analysts told the FT that Iran misread Israel’s tolerance for risk and overestimated the strength of its regional alliance, the so-called “axis of resistance.” While Hamas, Hizbollah, and the Houthis remain active, none have stepped in meaningfully as Iran comes under direct Israeli attack. Soleimani’s once-vaunted regional network now appears overstretched and strategically fragmented.

Meanwhile, Israel and Iran exchanged strikes a week into their war Friday, while new diplomatic efforts appeared to be underway as Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Switzerland for meetings with the European Union’s top diplomat and counterparts from the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

Speaking beforehand at the United Nations’ top human rights forum in Geneva, Iran’s top diplomat called Israel’s strikes an “unprovoked aggression.”

Israel’s military says 25 fighter jets carried out airstrikes Friday morning targeting “missile storage and launch infrastructure components” in western Iran.

Thousands of people protested in Iran’s capital over the ongoing Israeli strikes, with one hard-line demonstrator telling The Associated Press: “How can we compromise with an enemy that breaches deals?”

A week of Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 657 people and wounded 2,037 others, the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists said Friday.

With inputs from agencies