The wishful thinking behind the war with Iran
84/100
Verdict
High Trust
Largely Reliable — Expert Analytical Commentary with a Verified Factual Basis and Opinion-Led Conclusions
The item under review is an 'Expert comment' published by Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) on 21 July 2026, authored by Dr Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an Associate Fellow in the institute's Middle East and North Africa Programme.
✓ 12 checks out
✕ 2 disputed
? 4 unverified
Full analysis The complete summary ⌄
The item under review is an 'Expert comment' published by Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) on 21 July 2026, authored by Dr Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an Associate Fellow in the institute's Middle East and North Africa Programme. The piece argues that the war launched against Iran by the United States and Israel has not achieved its stated political objectives — regime collapse, decisive military degradation, or Iranian political capitulation — and that Tehran has instead adopted a doctrine of 'strategic attrition'. Targeted research confirms the article's core factual scaffolding: the war began with US–Israeli strikes on 28 February 2026; Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in those opening strikes; nationwide Iranian protests ran from late December 2025 into January 2026 and were met with a lethal crackdown; the rial hit successive record lows in the days immediately before publication; Iran struck US assets in multiple Gulf and Levant states in mid-July 2026; and the historical anchors (the 1 April 2024 strike on Iran's Damascus consulate, Iran's October 2024 missile salvo, and the June 2025 US strikes on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan) are accurately rendered. Two categories of weakness reduce the score. First, several load-bearing statements are analytical judgements presented with high confidence but without in-text sourcing — most notably the claim that Iranian support for regional proxies 'has not been weakened', which runs against a substantial body of contemporaneous expert analysis describing a degraded proxy architecture (the author does hedge in parentheses). Second, the article is a single-perspective opinion piece with no counter-argument from officials who maintain the campaign is succeeding, and it is now roughly six weeks stale: major US strike waves on 29–30 July 2026, continued exchanges into early September 2026, and a further rial collapse to over 2.2 million to the dollar post-date it. Note also that the supplied text is a full page scrape: roughly three-quarters of the 4,419-word count is cookie-consent boilerplate and site navigation, not editorial content; the substantive article is approximately 1,100 words. No fabricated events, invented officials or non-existent institutions were detected. Readers should treat the descriptive base as sound and the strategic conclusions as one credible expert reading among several.
What checked out (12)
- The United States and Israel began a series of strikes against Iran on 28 February 2026, with stated aims including regime change and the targeting of Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes — corroborated by the UK House of Commons Library briefing CBP-10521, Britannica's '2026 Iran war' entry and the CFR Global Conflict Tracker.
- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening US–Israeli attack of 28 February 2026, aged 86, with the Iranian government declaring 40 days of national mourning — corroborated by NPR (28 Feb/1 Mar 2026), RFE/RL and Spectrum News, which reported Iranian state media confirmation.
- The article's temporal framing 'nearly five months after' is arithmetically accurate: 28 February 2026 to 21 July 2026 is 143 days, or approximately 4.7 months.
- Nationwide protests swept Iran from late December 2025 through mid-January 2026 and were violently suppressed — corroborated by Congressional Research Service product IF13153 (14 January 2026), Human Rights Watch (4 February 2026) and Amnesty International (January 2026), the latter documenting mass killings around 8–9 January and a total internet shutdown from 8 January 2026.
- The Iranian rial reached record lows in the days immediately preceding publication: the US dollar hit a record 1,918,000 rials on the open market on Friday 17 July 2026, consistent with the article's hyperlinked reference to record lows 'at the weekend'.
- Iran sustained multi-theatre missile and drone operations against US assets in Gulf and Levant states in the period described: the IRGC claimed strikes on US military assets in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Jordan and Syria in mid-July 2026 (Al Jazeera, 17 July 2026), with drone attacks on Erbil International Airport and the US Consulate in Erbil, Iraq reported on 15 July 2026.
- President Trump publicly framed the destruction of Iran's missile capability in absolute terms, stating in his 28 February 2026 address that the US would 'raze their missile industry to the ground' and that it would be 'totally again obliterated' — verified against the full statement text published by PBS NewsHour.
- The historical antecedents are accurately described: Israel's suspected strike on Iran's consulate in Damascus occurred on 1 April 2024 (and Chatham House did publish the linked commentary on it); Iran's October 2024 missile attack on Israel was explicitly framed by Iranian officials as retaliation for the assassinations of Ismail Haniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah and Abbas Nilforoushan; and US strikes on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan took place on 22 June 2025 under Operation Midnight Hammer.
- Iran's insistence that uranium enrichment on its soil is non-negotiable is corroborated: Iranian officials publicly declared the enriched-uranium stockpile a 'red line' outside the negotiating agenda (May 2026), while indicating flexibility on enrichment levels rather than on the right itself.
- The author's stated affiliation is accurate: Dr Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi is an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, based in Abu Dhabi, holding a PhD from the Department of War Studies, King's College London, with prior roles at RUSI (where she led the MENA programme), the NATO Defence College, LSE and ECFR.
- The article itself is genuine and correctly attributed: it is published at chathamhouse.org/2026/07/wishful-thinking-behind-war-iran, dated 21 July 2026, and was syndicated in Spanish- and Italian-language press review outlets on 22 July 2026.
- Chatham House's stated corporate identity in the footer is accurate: a registered charity in England and Wales, charity number 208223, at 10 St James's Square, London.
Disputed claims 2 claims ⌄
- DISPUTED (not false): 'Its support for its proxies across the region has not been weakened (though its ability to fund and supply them may have been).' A substantial body of contemporaneous expert analysis argues the opposite — that Iran's proxy architecture has been materially degraded, with partners reducing overt invocation of the 'axis of resistance', asserting operational autonomy, and in some cases declining to enter the current war. The author's parenthetical hedge partially reconciles the two readings by distinguishing political alignment from material capability, but the unhedged headline formulation is contestable and is presented without supporting evidence. Insufficient grounds to rate 'False' under the guardrail; rated Disputed.
- DISPUTED (framing/omission, not falsity): The article's characterisation of an unbroken war trajectory understates the formal diplomatic architecture in place. A Pakistan-mediated two-week pause was announced on 8 April 2026 and the US and Iran signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding on 17 June 2026; by late July 2026 President Pezeshkian was publicly offering reciprocal compliance if the US 'returns to its commitments in the memorandum'. The article alludes to 'temporary ceasefires, failed negotiations' generically and links related Chatham House ceasefire coverage, so this is an omission of specificity rather than a misstatement.
Unverified claims 4 claims ⌄
- UNVERIFIED (specific figure): The image caption's assertion that 'Iranian authorities said the United States carried out attacks on 95 locations across 12 cities over the past 10 days' in Hormozgan province. Independent reporting confirms US strikes in Hormozgan on or around 14 July 2026 hitting Qeshm Island, Bandar Abbas and Hengam Island, and further strike waves across Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Fars and Bushehr on 29 July 2026 — but no independent corroboration of the precise '95 locations / 12 cities' tally was located. The figure is single-sourced to Iranian authorities via the Anadolu/Getty caption and should be treated as a belligerent claim, not established fact.
- UNVERIFIED (inherently unverifiable, and acknowledged as such by the author): 'There is no reliable public estimate of Iran's remaining missile stockpiles or production capacity.' No authoritative open-source inventory was located, which is itself consistent with the author's statement. This is a claim about the absence of evidence and cannot be confirmed or falsified with available sources; the author's transparency here is a credibility positive rather than a defect.
- UNVERIFIED (interpretive/intentional): The assertions that Iran's earlier restraint was deliberate strategy aimed at 'collecting valuable intelligence on Israeli and American missile-defence systems, response times and interception patterns', that Iran has 'not prioritized preserving its military assets', and that Tehran has now formally added control of the Strait of Hormuz to its list of core red lines. Circumstantially supported — Iranian officials signalled changed Strait of Hormuz shipping procedures in May 2026, the Strait was subsequently closed, and the December 2025 US National Security Strategy names keeping Hormuz open as a 'core' US interest — but claims about Tehran's internal intent and doctrinal decision-making are not directly evidenced by any accessible primary source.
- UNVERIFIED (counterfactual/forward-looking): 'The war may even have strengthened some of the very institutions it was intended to weaken', and the prediction that the likely outcome is 'neither decisive victory nor durable peace' but a self-perpetuating cycle. These are analytical forecasts and counterfactuals, not testable factual assertions.
Sources & how we checked Search journal, source grades, confidence ⌄
Confidence
High (82%) — Confidence is high because the article's identity, authorship and publication date were confirmed against the publisher's own live page and independent syndication, and because every high-priority factual claim was tested against at least two independent, dated sources — including primary government and parliamentary material (PBS-published presidential statement, White House release, House of Commons Library briefings CBP-10521 and CBP-10637, CRS product IF13153) and primary human-rights documentation (HRW, Amnesty). Convergence across ideologically diverse outlets (NPR, RFE/RL, Al Jazeera, Jerusalem Post, Gulf News, Iran International, Britannica, CFR, Critical Threats) on the core chronology is strong. Confidence is held below 90% for four reasons: the '95 locations across 12 cities' figure could not be independently corroborated and rests on a belligerent's own claim; several of the article's most consequential assertions concern Iranian strategic intent and are inherently unfalsifiable from open sources; the proxy-support claim is actively contested by credible specialist analysis, creating genuine adjudicative ambiguity rather than a clean verdict; and the subject is a live, fast-moving armed conflict in which the evidentiary picture has demonstrably shifted between the 21 July 2026 publication date and this assessment in early September 2026, so any snapshot judgement carries elevated decay risk. Consistent with the stated guardrails, no claim was marked False on the basis of model knowledge, and all residual uncertainty has been recorded as Unverified or Disputed with the specific evidentiary limitation named.
Search journal
Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi Chatham House
- https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-people/aniseh-bassiri-tabrizi
- https://amwaj.media/en/author/V_vz7VvHTK-15hk_bRwg-Q
- https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=v8EyCLsAAAAJ&hl=en
US Israel strikes Iran February 2026 war began
- https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10521/
- https://www.britannica.com/event/2026-Iran-war
- https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/confrontation-between-united-states-and-iran
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-Day_War
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iranian_strikes_on_Israel
Khamenei killed February 2026 Iran supreme leader
- https://www.npr.org/2026/02/28/nx-s1-5730158/israel-iran-strikes-trump-us
- https://www.npr.org/2026/02/28/1123499337/iran-israel-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-killed
- https://www.rferl.org/a/khamenei-death-iran-us-strikes-israel-obituary/33690677.html
- https://spectrumlocalnews.com/us/snplus/international/2026/02/28/israel-launches-attack-on-iran-s-capital-w...
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Ali_Khamenei
Iran missile attacks Gulf states Kuwait Bahrain Qatar 2026
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/17/gulf-states-come-under-iranian-fire-as-us-strikes-intensify
Iranian rial record low July 2026 exchange rate
- https://www.iranintl.com/en/202607178061
- https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/2026/08/24/irans-currency-hits-record-low-as-us-prepares-to-hit-te...
- https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2026/09/02/iran-s-rial-drops-to-new-low-of-22-million-to-the-dollar
- https://tradingeconomics.com/iran/inflation-cpi
Iran protests late 2025 early 2026 nationwide crackdown
- https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF13153/IF13153.1.pdf
- https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/02/04/iran-human-rights-situation-spirals-deeper-into-crisis
- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2026/01/what-happened-at-the-protests-in-iran/
- https://www.britannica.com/event/2026-Iranian-Protests
- https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IF13153.html
Trump Iran missile force obliterated 2026 statement
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/read-trumps-full-statement-on-iran-attack
- https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/04/president-trumps-clear-and-unchanging-objectives-drive-decisive...
US strikes Fordow Natanz Isfahan June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer
- https://www.twz.com/air/b-2-strikes-on-iran-what-we-know-about-operation-midnight-hammer
- https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-operation-midnight-hammer-means-future-irans-nuclear-ambitions
- https://thebulletin.org/2025/06/the-us-strike-on-irans-nuclear-sites-preliminary-thoughts-on-the-outcomes/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_strikes_on_Iranian_nuclear_sites
Israel strike Iranian consulate Damascus April 2024 Iran retaliation
- https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/04/strike-irans-consulate-syria-could-be-spark-ignites-middle-east
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/8/how-will-iran-respond-to-israels-attack-on-its-damascus-consulate
- https://www.stimson.org/2024/iran-carefully-weighs-response-to-israeli-attack-in-damascus/
- https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/02/middleeast/iran-response-israel-damascus-consulate-attack-intl-hnk/index.html
US Iran ceasefire June 2026 memorandum of understanding Pakistan mediated collapse
- https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10637/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamabad_Memorandum
Iran strikes US forces Iraq July 2026 Erbil Ain al-Asad drones
- https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/iran-update-july-15-2026
- https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/03/01/us-troops-attacked-in-erbil-as-iraqi-militants-conside...
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/2/iran-us-exchange-new-attacks-who-was-hit-in-latest-strikes
- https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/us-strikes-iran-tehran-retaliates-with-missile-and-drone-attacks-in-kuwait-...
Iran proxies Hezbollah Houthis capability 2026 after war weakened funding
- https://www.belfercenter.org/research-analysis/degradation-irans-proxy-model
- https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/02/iran-war-hezbollah-lebabon-houthis-yemen-iraq-proxies/
- https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5756940-iran-proxy-network-weakens/
Iran enrichment red line uranium July 2026 negotiations Tehran refuses
- https://www.iranintl.com/en/202605271784
- https://www.euronews.com/2026/05/12/iran-threatens-weapons-grade-uranium-enrichment-as-peace-talks-falter
- https://en.hathalyoum.net/articles/271172
- https://thebulletin.org/2026/02/give-negotiations-a-chance-how-to-turn-irans-claimed-right-to-enrich-uraniu...
Iran Strait of Hormuz closure 2026 core national interest
- https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/the-strait-of-hormuz-closure-is-only-the-beginning
- https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-the-us-navy-can-learn-from-iran
- https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45281
US strikes Hormozgan province Iran July 2026 95 locations 12 cities
- https://www.iranintl.com/en/202607146510
- https://en.apa.az/asia/iran-reports-us-strikes-on-sites-in-hormozgan-province-516210
- https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-904062
- https://www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/iran-update-special-report-july-30-2026
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_May_2026_United_States_strikes_on_Iran
Chatham House "wishful thinking" war with Iran expert comment July 2026 Tabrizi
- https://www.chathamhouse.org/2026/07/wishful-thinking-behind-war-iran
- https://www.almendron.com/tribuna/the-wishful-thinking-behind-the-war-with-iran/
- https://theglobaleye.it/2026/07/22/le-illusioni-che-si-celano-dietro-la-guerra-con-liran/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iran_war
Chatham House funding transparency independence think tank rating
- https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-funding
- https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-funding/financial-transparency-ranking
- https://www.chathamhouse.org/about-us/our-funding/principles-independent-research-convening-and-fundraising
- https://tfn.scot/news/charity-think-tanks-named-in-report-on-funding-transparency
- https://onthinktanks.org/articles/the-road-to-transparency-is-not-entirely-straightforward-the-chatham-hous...
Iran October 2024 missile attack Israel response Nasrallah Haniyeh assassinations
- https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10113/
- https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-lebanon-war-hezbollah-10-1-24-intl-hnk
- https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/10/01/iran-readying-imminent-ballistic-missile-attack-against-israel-us-offic...
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# The wishful thinking behind the war with Iran
Iran has survived war with the US by adapting its doctrine. The US must also change its thinking.
Expert comment
Published 21 July 2026 — 3 minute READ
Image — A damaged bridge in Iran's Hormozgan province, where Iranian authorities said the United States carried out attacks on 95 locations across 12 cities over the past 10 days. Pictured on 19 July 2026. (Photo by Amir Hossein Khorgooei/Anadolu via Getty Images
[ ### Dr Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi Associate Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme](
Nearly five months after the United States and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran, it is becoming increasingly difficult to escape one conclusion: the central objectives that underpinned Washington’s decision to go war have not materialized.
Wars should ultimately be judged not by the number of targets destroyed or sorties flown, but by whether they achieve their political objectives. By that measure, the campaign against Iran deserves a sober reassessment.
The expectation that military pressure would trigger regime collapse, force Tehran into political capitulation, or fundamentally degrade its strategic capabilities has, so far, not been borne out. At best, those expectations were overly optimistic. At worst, they reflected wishful thinking masquerading as strategy.
First, regime change has not happened – and there is little evidence to suggest the war will bring it about anytime soon. Iran undoubtedly faces deep domestic dissatisfaction. Years of sanctions, inflation, corruption and political repression have generated repeated waves of unrest, culminating in the nationwide protests of late 2025 and early 2026, which were brutally suppressed by the security apparatus.
The discontent which led to those protests is likely still brewing. But history repeatedly demonstrates that authoritarian regimes often prove far more resilient under external attack than anticipated. Foreign intervention often allows regimes to recast themselves as defenders of national sovereignty – blunting internal dissent in the process. Opposition movements can be reluctant to mobilize while the country is under attack.
That appears to be precisely what has happened in Iran. Rather than imploding, the Islamic Republic has weathered what many in the US and Israel believed would become an existential crisis. Political fractures remain, and the economy continues to deteriorate: [the rial touched record lows at the weekend]( "Opens in new window"). But the state retains the institutional cohesion, security capacity and elite discipline necessary to survive. The war may even have strengthened some of the very institutions it was intended to weaken.
Second, the assumption that Iran’s military capability has been decisively degraded is difficult to sustain. Throughout the campaign, President Donald Trump repeatedly declared that Iran’s missile force had been ‘obliterated’ and that much of its launch infrastructure had been destroyed. Israeli officials similarly highlighted the destruction of launchers, production facilities and command-and-control nodes. Yet developments over the past five months suggest those assessments were, at minimum, premature.
Iran has demonstrated a sustained ability to launch ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones across multiple theatres, from the Strait of Hormuz to countries hosting US military bases – including recent strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq and Jordan.
Whether acting directly or through its regional partners, Tehran has maintained a tempo of operations inconsistent with claims that its arsenal has been nearly exhausted. There is no reliable public estimate of Iran’s remaining missile stockpiles or production capacity. Definitive claims about its military depletion are difficult to sustain.
## Strategic attrition
More importantly, Iran has demonstrated an ability to learn. It has not prioritized preserving its military assets. Instead, it has adapted its doctrine based on previous rounds of confrontation in 2024 and 2025. What once appeared to be operational shortcomings increasingly resemble the learning curve of a military preparing for a prolonged conflict rather than a single decisive exchange.
> Iran has not sought battlefield dominance but strategic attrition, gradually increasing the political, economic and military costs for its opponents
In 2024, Iran carefully choreographed its military response to both [Israel’s attack on its Syrian consulate]( "The strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria could be the spark that ignites the Middle East") in April of that year and the assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas fighters that October.
Missile attacks on Israel were launched in measured waves, often lacking precision. Even its retaliation for US strikes against Fordow and other nuclear facilities in June 2025 appeared designed to demonstrate resolve without provoking an uncontrollable regional war. This was read by some as hesitation or lack of capability. But it is now clear that it was strategy.
[Iran]( "Iran") possessed greater capacity to escalate, as it has demonstrated in the current war. But it chose not to exhaust its options. That restraint, interpreted by some as weakness, is consistent with a strategy of preserving escalation options while collecting valuable intelligence on Israeli and American missile-defence systems, response times and interception patterns.
In the 2026 conflict, Iranian targeting has become noticeably more selective. Rather than launching as many projectiles as possible, Tehran has focused on maximizing the strategic value of each strike. Attacks against Gulf energy infrastructure, ports and logistics nodes generate disproportionate economic, political and psychological consequences for the US and countries in the region.
This reflects a fundamentally different theory of victory. Iran has not sought battlefield dominance, but strategic attrition, gradually increasing the political, economic and military costs for its opponents over time.
In other words, Iran appears less focused on winning a short war than on managing a long confrontation, imposing incremental costs on its adversaries while preserving military and political options for future rounds of escalation.
## Making a deal
The final assumption of the war, that Iran would capitulate politically and agree to a deal beneficial to [the US]( "United States of America") and Israel, also proved wrong. Tehran’s red lines remain remarkably similar to those that existed before the war.
Enrichment of uranium on its soil remains non-negotiable. Its ballistic missile program may be damaged and depleted to some extent but is still central to its deterrence strategy. Its support for its proxies across the region has not been weakened (though its ability to fund and supply them may have been). In fact, the war has caused Tehran to expand the range of issues it considers core national interests, now adding control of the Strait of Hormuz to its list of red lines.
[ Related work ### Iran and the new Persian Gulf equilibrium](
Far from appearing weakened, Iran increasingly projects confidence that it has weathered the storm. Whether that confidence is justified is almost secondary. It is Tehran’s perception of its situation that will shape its behaviour.
This is why the current trajectory is so troubling. If policymakers continue to base their strategy on assumptions that have repeatedly failed – that the regime is on the verge of collapse, that military pressure alone will produce capitulation, or that additional strikes will fundamentally alter Tehran’s calculations – they risk fighting a war with an Iranian regime that exists more in their expectations than in reality.
The likely outcome is neither decisive victory nor durable peace, but an increasingly familiar cycle of tit-for-tat, temporary ceasefires, failed negotiations and renewed escalation. Each fresh round of fighting will doubtless be presented by the US as the one that will finally break Tehran’s resolve. Yet each round is more likely to convince Iran that strategic patience, rather than compromise, remains its best option.
Until US assumptions are revisited, the war risks becoming self-perpetuating, driven less by achievable political objectives than by the hope that the next round of military pressure will succeed where every previous round has failed.
## Topics
* [US foreign policy](
## Regions
* [Iran](
* [United States of America](
## Departments
* [Middle East and North Africa Programme](
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## Related work
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[ Expert comment ### Will the US–Iran ceasefire hold? Both sides want to buy time. But other factors like midterm elections, Israel, and deep mistrust may intervene. 22 June 2026 3 minute READ](
[ Expert comment ### Iran and the new Persian Gulf equilibrium The Axis of Resistance failed to deter Israel and the US. Whatever deal ends the war, Tehran will seek to rebuild its deterrence around the threat it poses to the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf states. 11 June 2026 4 minute READ](
[ Expert comment ### US–Iran ceasefire: What it means for Trump, Tehran, Israel and US allies. Early analysis from Chatham House experts What does the ceasefire mean for the Islamic Republic, President Trump, the Strait of Hormuz and the UK? And how should the world respond to challenges to the humanitarian legal order? 8 April 2026 5 minute READ](
[ Expert comment ### The contest of will between Trump and Iran Iran is operating from the principle that if it goes down, it will bring down others with it. 2 March 2026 3 minute READ](
[ Expert comment ### US and Israel attack Iran, killing Khamenei. Tehran launches counterstrikes: Early analysis from Chatham House experts What do the attacks mean for the regime after the death of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? How will they affect ordinary Iranians, and the region? And what does President Trump hope to achieve? Chatham House experts provide insights. 28 February 2026 7 minute READ](
[ Expert comment ### Why are Middle Eastern governments lobbying against a US attack on Iran? Threat perceptions have changed. Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt all wish to avoid a war that would bring even more upheaval to the region. 19 February 2026 4 minute READ](
[ Expert comment ### Trump’s objective is to force Iran into strategic submission The threat of force is still very much on the table – as the president seeks to use pressure and unpredictability to turn Iranian weakness into a durable shift that benefits the US. 16 January 2026 3 minute READ](
[ Expert comment ### Would Trump’s threatened strikes help Iran’s protesters or boost the regime? The effects of a US strike in Iran could range from disaster to deliverance. 12 January 2026 3 minute READ](
[ Expert comment ### The US needs a new Iran strategy if Trump’s Gaza plan is to endure The president’s accomplishment in bringing about a ceasefire in Gaza is welcome. But without diplomatic engagement, a cornered and wounded Iran could undermine longer term peace. 15 October 2025 4 minute READ](
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