On February 28, the U.S. military, in concert with Israel, launched a series of strikes against Iran. It was the second time since President Donald Trump took office that he had gone to war against Iran. The first strikes came in June 2025 against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, eight days after Israel had attacked the same nuclear sites.

As with the military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last January, the Trump administration has offered a host of objectives for the war.  At various points, administration officials have described the war as an act of self-defense, a counterproliferation campaign, a counterterrorism operation, a regional stabilization effort, a campaign to destroy Iran’s military capabilities, and a war of liberation.

Yet, nearly three months in, none of these disparate goals has been achieved, and because of Iran’s response to the attack — stopping maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz — it’s unlikely any of them will be achieved in the future. However, even if some achievements emerge, the benefits to U.S. national security interests would be marginal at best. 

Even worse, in the nearly three months since the war began, the Trump administration has failed to provide a clear, consistent, or coherent answer to the most basic questions that should precede any war: What was the United States trying to accomplish by utilizing military force against Iran for the second time in a year? What national interest was at stake? And how, exactly, does the war make Americans more secure?

On the cost side of the equation, the war’s price tag continues to rise. Indeed, the indirect costs of the war – from higher gas prices and regional instability to curtailed transit of key economic inputs from fertilizer to helium – could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars and cripple a host of industries and economic sectors.

To be sure, the conflict has not reached a final resolution, and a shaky ceasefire remains in place. But the evidence to date points in one direction: The Iran war was not worth it for the United States, and there is little reason to expect that judgment to change.

U.S. Objectives

The question of whether the Iran war was a good idea must begin with a clear understanding of what the United States was trying to achieve. That is easier said than done, as President Trump and other administration officials have offered a host of explanations for why they took the United States to war. Even more problematic is that these stated objectives are inconsistent with U.S. grand strategy as laid out in the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) last November.

In the run-up to war, Trump made little effort to build a public case for war.

For example, in Trump’s February 25 State of the Union Address, which came only three days before the war began, he spoke for only a few minutes about Iran (more than 80 minutes into the 100-minute address) and offered a contradictory set of rationales and potential outcomes.

Though Trump claimed that the United States had “obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program” in June 2025, he warned that Iran was seeking to “start all over again” with a nuclear weapons program. He said that Iran had “already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas” and was working on missiles that could reach the United States.

Trump also invoked Iran’s support for insurgents who attacked American troops during the Iraq War, the U.S. killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020, and Iran’s harsh internal repression, including the recent massacre of protesters.

What he did not provide was a clear explanation of why attacking Iran served U.S. national security interests. It is difficult to assess the merits of the Iran War if the president cannot articulate a clear strategic rationale for using force.

After the first U.S. military strikes on February 28, Trump posted a brief address on social media in the middle of the night, when many Americans were asleep.

He said that the ultimate U.S. objective in Iran was “to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.”

Trump also claimed that Iran’s “menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies throughout the world.”

However, most of Trump’s comments about Iran’s “menacing activities” dwelt with old grievances – the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and the holding of 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, ritualistic chants of “Death to America,” the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, and the 2000 attack on the U.S.S Cole, which is generally blamed on al Qaeda but which Trump claimed Iran “knew” about and “probably” had some involvement in. Notably, Trump did not offer evidence that Iran posed “an imminent threat” to the United States or its strategic interests.

Trump also portrayed Iran as a source of destabilization in the Middle East and a sponsor of terrorism, including the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas against Israel.

According to Trump, the United States had “undertaken a massive and ongoing operation” to:

• “Destroy [Iran’s] missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground.”
• “Annihilate [Iran’s] navy.”
• “Ensure that [Iran’s] terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”
• Prevent Iran from using “IEDs or roadside bombs, as they are sometimes called, to so gravely wound and kill thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans.”
• “Ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.”

Trump also obliquely offered a potential outcome for the war: regime change.

“To the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations.”

In a follow-up interview with the Washington Post soon after, Trump added: “All I want is freedom for the people.” Trump’s words might have been a nod to the Israeli plan to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the opening day of the war.

Days later, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth laid out four military objectives for the war – potential regime change and the reduction of Iranian support for terrorist proxies went unmentioned. Those objectives were to “destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure, and [ensure] they will never have nuclear weapons.” Those objectives are still on the Pentagon’s website.

Since the war began, a new and more urgent objective has emerged: to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ship traffic, which was closed because America and Israel went to war in the first place.

Many of the goals stated by Trump administration officials overlap. Some are contradictory. Others refer to conflicts no longer occurring. But all of them set a high bar for success. Judged against that standard, the war in Iran has achieved far less than the administration promised and has arguably put Washington in a less advantageous strategic position.

Did the United States Achieve Its Objectives?

Destroy Iran’s Missiles and Raze Their Missile Industry to the Ground

According to recent reporting in the New York Times and Washington Post, classified assessments from the U.S. intelligence community found that Iran has retained roughly 70% of its prewar missile stockpile and mobile launchers, and has regained access to approximately 90% of its underground missile storage and launch facilities, most of which are assessed as “partially or fully operational.” Additionally, Iran has restored operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, allowing it to continue to threaten shipping in the vital waterway.

Iran’s missile and drone production infrastructure also remains largely intact. Recent U.S. intelligence assessments report that the U.S. and Israeli campaign set back Iran’s military reconstitution by a matter of months rather than years. CNN reports that “some U.S. intelligence estimates indicate Iran could fully reconstitute its drone attack capability in as soon as six months.” This rapid recovery appears to be facilitated by Russian and Chinese support, coupled with lighter-than-expected damage from U.S. and Israeli strikes.

Those findings challenge official claims such as Hegseth’s April 8 declaration that Operation Epic Fury had “decimated Iran’s military” and rendered it “combat-ineffective for years to come.” They also underscore a broader challenge in relying on airpower to destroy a fortified and mobile missile force.

Of greater importance, however, is the question of whether destroying Iran’s missile production capacity was important enough to justify the significant costs of the war. A Defense Intelligence Agency assessment last year found that Iran does not possess ballistic missiles that can hit the United States and could take as long as a decade to develop that capability.

In short, degrading Iran’s missile program may have value, but it was not an urgent U.S. national security necessity — and even if it was, the United States hasn’t achieved that goal.

Ensure That Iran Does Not Obtain A Nuclear Weapon

The administration’s nuclear objectives are even more difficult to square with the results. Trump and other administration officials have repeatedly said that preventing Iran from getting a nuclear bomb is a key goal of the war. However, Trump has also said that last June’s Operation Midnight Hammer “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. If that claim was true, it is unclear why another war was necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a bomb. If it were not true, it means the administration has misled the public about the success of last summer’s operation.

Trump has said that Iran was seeking to restart its nuclear program. But this claim is contradicted by U.S. intelligence and by U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said, before the war began, that Iran was not currently enriching nuclear fuel.

Moreover, U.S. strikes focused primarily on Iran’s leadership, conventional military capabilities, and military-industrial base rather than its nuclear sites. Reuters reported on May 4 that U.S. intelligence assessments judged Iran’s nuclear capacity to be broadly unchanged since last summer, with Iran still needing roughly a year to build a bomb. In other words, Tehran’s nuclear program looked largely the same even after three months of a war launched in part to stop the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear bomb.

The status of Iran’s supply of highly enriched uranium is also unchanged. In a recent interview, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu floated the idea of putting troops on the ground in Iran to secure the uranium and stated that the war “is not over” because nuclear material remains in Iran and enrichment sites still have to be dismantled. At the same time, the war has emboldened pro-nuclearization voices inside Iran, who can point to the attack as evidence that a nuclear weapon is the only guarantee against further aggression. According to Reuters, Iranian officials opposed to pursuing a nuclear weapon have lamented that the deaths of Khamenei and Ali Larijani, who was Iran’s top national security official and was also cautious on weaponization, have also made it harder to resist calls for building a nuclear device.

Annihilate Iran’s Navy

The clearest U.S. military success in the war is in degrading Iran’s navy. Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of CENTCOM, testified to Congress that U.S. attacks destroyed 161 naval vessels and 90% of Iran’s stockpile of around 8,000 mines, along with much of its naval industrial base. Cooper told Congress that “Iran’s navy can no longer claim to be a maritime power and is unable to project into the Gulf of Oman or the Indian Ocean.”

While the U.S. succeeded in damaging Iran’s conventional navy, it did not weaken Iran’s capacity to impose maritime costs or disrupt ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. Most of the naval craft destroyed to date belonged to Iran’s regular armed forces. As recent reports from the New York Times and the Hudson Institute note, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) maintains a fleet of fast boats and land-based missile launchers that have served as the primary threat to shipping. So, while the United States succeeded in damaging Iran’s conventional navy, it did not remove Iran’s ability to impose severe costs on the global economy through asymmetric maritime disruption. 

Indeed, the war showcased Iran’s coercive leverage over one of the world’s most important waterways, revealing that in a future conflict, it can threaten or close the vital strait even while under overwhelming attack.

Freedom for Iranians/Regime Change

The administration’s hoped for political outcome has fared no better.

At the outset of the war, Trump suggested that the war would bring freedom to the Iranian people and create an opportunity for them to “take over” their government. Instead, the regime and its core structures remain intact and may be more entrenched than before.

The assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not topple the regime and, in fact, elevated hardliners inside the government into positions of greater influence. The aging Khamenei, despite his rhetoric, at times displayed some degree of caution and resisted crossing the threshold of nuclear weaponization. He was replaced by his son, Mojtaba, who is widely seen as more hard-line and deeply tied to the IRGC. In fact, the younger Khamenei has effectively passed decision-making to a cohort of hardline IRGC commanders and their allies.

With the regime under immense pressure and increasingly unpopular prior to the war, a successor as hard-line as Mojtaba was far from guaranteed. In that sense, as Israeli analyst Danny Citrinowicz noted recently in Foreign Affairs, the war may not have weakened the regime so much as empowered its most extreme elements at the very moment when succession was uncertain.

The regime has also continued, and in some respects intensified, its repression. Executions have surged since the ceasefire, and Iranian officials claim to have arrested over 6,500 people for espionage and collaboration since the war began.

The war did not liberate Iran or end the rule of the mullahs. Iran is battered but still dangerous, now led by harder-line actors, with a better, credible understanding of how to impose pain on the United States and its partners in future crises.

Ensure That Iran’s Terrorist Proxies Can No Longer Destabilize the Region or the World and Attack Our Forces, and No Longer Use Their IEDs

Due to repeated Israeli military operations since the October 7 attacks, Iran’s network of allied militias was a shell of its former self before the war began. Since February, U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iranian-aligned militias in Iraq, Israeli strikes on Hezbollah (which continued anew after the Iran war began), and the two-year conflict in Gaza have dramatically weakened these groups. Another key Iranian proxy, the Houthis in Yemen, has largely sat the war out, launching just a handful of attacks on Israel, and has not used the fighting as an excuse to resume targeting shipping off the Horn of Africa.

However, while Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis represent a military threat to Israel, they haven’t posed a serious, direct threat to U.S. interests in recent years, particularly now that the last U.S. combat troops departed Syria in April, and the small number of remaining U.S. forces in Iraq are in an advise and assist capacity. Weakening Iran’s proxies may benefit Israel, but it offers little direct payoff for U.S. national security.

Trump’s reference to IEDs or roadside bombs speaks to the administration’s strategic incoherence about the war. Iranian-supplied IEDs killed and wounded hundreds of U.S. troops at the height of the Iraq war, but Iranian-backed militias in Iraq have long ceased using them. Even if IEDs remained a threat, there are no U.S. combat troops on the ground in the Middle East. This stated objective addressed a problem that no longer exists.

Reopen the Strait of Hormuz

In response to the joint US-Israeli attack, Iran has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil flows, creating the greatest energy shock in modern history.

Due to Iran’s action, a new U.S. goal quickly emerged – reopening the waterway to maritime traffic.Indeed, this objective has since overwhelmed Washington’s other aims. A potential interim agreement between Washington and Tehran to extend the ceasefire agreement includes only one Iranian concession — reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a return to the status quo ante. The deal leaves unresolved earlier U.S. objectives: destroying Iran’s missile arsenal, ensuring it never acquires a nuclear weapon, and weakening its support for terrorist proxies.

This outcome is particularly striking given that Trump’s NSS identifies keeping the Strait of Hormuz open as a core U.S. interest in the Middle East. Yet just months after releasing that document, the administration launched a war that threatened the very interest it had defined as essential. U.S. officials are reported to have severely underestimated Iran’s willingness and ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. Yet Iran’s closure of the strait was entirely predictable. Analysts have long feared, and expected, that Iran would use this “oil weapon” in a full-scale conflict with the United States, seeing it as a relatively simple way to make up for its conventional inferiority. It should not have come as a surprise that Iran would be willing to suffer the economic pain of the strait’s closure in a conflict seen as existential.

In sum, the United States has made little progress toward its stated prewar objectives. Iran retains a significant missile stockpile, and its missile infrastructure has largely been reconstituted. Its nuclear program remains in roughly the same condition it was before the war. Many Iranian naval assets have been destroyed, but the capabilities that remain have allowed Tehran to impose a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. Iran was not threatening U.S. soldiers with roadside bombs. And with Washington now focused on reopening a waterway closed because of the war itself, it is unlikely to achieve its other objectives anytime soon, if ever.

Does the War Make Sense?

It’s bad enough that the United States has failed to achieve its key stated objectives in the Iran War, but even more concerning is that many of those objectives are of little consequence and tangential to U.S. grand strategy.

Preventing nuclear proliferation is plainly a top U.S. interest. But considering that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure had already been severely damaged last June, it’s difficult to argue that another war was worth the cost, especially when the new campaign left Iran’s nuclear capacity largely unchanged.

Degrading Iran’s missile production is not inconsequential, but considering how far Iran is from producing missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, the threat did not justify a war sold as a response to an imminent danger.

Destroying Iran’s navy is of even less value. Even with Iran’s naval assets severely weakened, Tehran is still able to impose its will in the Strait of Hormuz, as its asymmetric maritime strategy was not dependent upon a conventional naval force.

Regime change could theoretically benefit the United States, but the administration appears to have given little thought to what would replace the regime or how to prevent collapse from causing regional instability. A reported plan to install discredited former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a sort of Iranian Delcy Rodriguez (the new leader of Venezuela after Maduro’s capture and arrest) suggests that neither the Israeli nor American intelligence establishments has a firm grip on Iranian domestic politics. Moreover, the resources expended by the United States were hardly commensurate with a serious and sustained effort at regime change. Washington seems to have hoped Khamenei’s death would have a cascade effect and lead to the regime’s demise. That didn’t happen, and there was no backup plan in place.

What Were the Costs?

While the benefits of the war for U.S. interests are negligible, the costs have been far greater and more wide-reaching than anticipated. First are the human costs. Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed in the conflict and an additional 380 wounded. In Iran, more than 1,700 civilians lost their lives, among them an estimated 250 children.

The direct financial costs are also substantial. As of May 12, the Pentagon has put the cost of the war at $29 billion. Iranian strikes in the first 48 hours of the war also damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East, causing “significant damage” at nine bases in the region. The threat of air attacks rendered some U.S. bases in the region too dangerous to staff at normal levels, forcing commanders to move most personnel from these sites out of the range of Iranian fire. U.S. officials have acknowledged that the true cost of the war will be closer to $50 billion once base reconstruction and destroyed assets are taken into account.

The campaign has also depleted already-strained U.S. munitions stockpiles, creating serious tradeoffs for other regions, particularly the Indo-Pacific. In the first two days of war, the military expended $5.6 billion in munitions. The United States fired roughly 1,100 long-range stealth cruise missiles, around half of its stockpile; more than 1,000 Tomahawks, roughly 10 times annual procurement and a third of total stockpiles; over 200 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors, roughly half of total inventory; and more than 1,300 Patriot interceptors, up to 60% of stockpiles and over two years of production at 2025 rates. A recent CSIS report found that it will take at least three years to replenish stockpiles of Tomahawk missiles and Patriot and THAAD interceptors, warning that “depleted inventories have created a window of vulnerability for a potential Western Pacific conflict.”

This depletion in weapons stockpiles, again, directly contradicts the NSS, which placed a premium on “deterring a conflict over Taiwan” and “build[ing] a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain” in East Asia. Burning through scarce munitions in a region (the Middle East) that the same document argues should be deemphasized in U.S. national security planning makes little strategic sense. The war has therefore imposed not only direct military costs, but also opportunity costs for U.S. readiness and deterrence in higher-priority theaters. In short, the decision to go to war – and the subsequent impact on America’s military capabilities and strategic deterrence vis-a-vis China – is, once again, inconsistent with the administration’s own definition of U.S. Grand Strategy.

Economic Costs

The larger economic costs of the war have been even more severe.

Due to the closure of the Straits of Hormuz, and the resulting impact on global oil supplies, gas prices have risen from $2.98 before the war to $4.49 as of mid-May – that’s 53% in less than 3 months. Higher gasoline and diesel prices alone added nearly $40 billion in costs to American consumers by mid-May.

Diesel prices are also up 54%, raising shipping and transportation costs, while jet fuel is up 56%, severely disrupting air travel globally and prompting FedEx and UPS to add surcharges to package shipments. Despite a ceasefire, Iran’s continued threat to the Strait of Hormuz is keeping gas prices elevated, with lasting knock-on effects on the U.S. and global economies. According to the head of the International Energy Agency, the disruption from the war has led to an oil shock worse than the 1973, 1979, and 2022 crises combined.

The economic damage is also likely to outlast the fighting itself. Even if a deal reopens the Strait of Hormuz, oil markets are unlikely to snap back to the prewar status quo. Shippers, insurers, and energy traders will continue to price in the risk that Iran could again disrupt the world’s most important energy chokepoint. The IEA estimates that it could take at least two to three months after mine clearance to reestablish steady export operations, and analysts warn of a lasting geopolitical risk premium on oil prices. Elevated energy prices and shortages of commodities such as fertilizer will continue to ripple through the economy, with downstream effects on vital economic sectors, like agriculture still to be felt.

The energy shock has contributed to inflation hitting a three-year high in the United States. In April, the Consumer Price Index rose 3.8% year-on-year, up from 2.4% in January. Higher inflation has effectively tied the Federal Reserve’s hands in cutting interest rates, removing a key lever to stimulate growth at a time when the economy is already under strain. University of Michigan economist Justin Wolfers estimates that keeping interest rates at their current level could lead to $200 billion in lost output for the U.S. economy

Beyond the direct costs are the second and third-order economic effects of the war. Goldman Sachs forecasts at least a 0.5 percentage-point drag on U.S. GDP growth due to the fighting. Wolfers estimates the war will cost the average American thousands of dollars, has wiped roughly $3 trillion off U.S. stock market valuations, with stocks down around 5% from where they would otherwise be, and carries a potential price tag in the hundreds of billions to trillions.

These costs show that even a war fought largely from the air and at a distance can still impose broad burdens on ordinary Americans. The economic consequences have also been felt globally, especially in Western Asia and developing countries, which are particularly vulnerable to energy disruptions.

Cutting off shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has significantly impacted global oil prices, but other industries are affected as well.

According to a May 2026 analysis by Reuters, the war had already imposed more than $25 billion in costs on global companies – the result of higher energy prices, disrupted shipping lanes, and supply chain disruptions. Hundreds of companies have cited the conflict as a trigger for everything from production cuts, price increases, suspended dividends, and reduced earnings guidance.

The airline industry will pay an additional $14 billion in fuel costs in 2026. Strikes on energy infrastructure forced Qatar, which produces a third of the world’s helium, to cut helium exports by 14%, affecting semiconductor manufacturing, medical imaging, and other industries. The Persian Gulf is also a major artery for urea and other fertilizer inputs, with roughly one-third of the world’s supply of urea coming from the region. The price of urea, the most popular synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, has risen by 80% since February, threatening to reduce global food production. Reduced access to fertilizer could also lower crop yields.

Diplomatic and Reputational Costs

The war has strained relations with Gulf partners and reinforced perceptions of the U.S. as a reckless unilateral actor. The fallout from the war is also making Gulf governments reconsider the value — and risks — of close security ties with Washington. Gulf states hosted U.S. bases on the assumption that they would deter conflict with Iran and enhance their security. Instead, those bases made them targets and dragged them into a war that several Gulf states spent months trying to prevent. The war is expected to cost Gulf states up to $200 billion and has threatened the foundations of their ambitious economic development initiatives. The war has further strained U.S. relationships outside the Middle East. Europe and Asia are bearing the brunt of the energy crisis, while leaders in those regions fear what the depletion of U.S. stockpiles means for their security.

Domestic Political Costs

Public opinion about the war has been uniformly negative from the start.

According to Nate Silver’s polling aggregator, Americans opposed the war by a 9-point margin in early March. As of late May, that number had widened to 22.8 points. Trump’s net approval rating (in Silver’s aggregator) has gone from approximately -12% to -19%. While it’s impossible to say that this entire drop-off is a result of the war, it stands to reason that as support for the war has declined, it has taken a toll on Trump’s standing with the American people.

This drop-off in support has further endangered the political strength of Trump and his Republican allies and increased the likelihood that Democrats will make significant political gains in midterm elections later this year. Moreover, the declining support for the war is likely tied in part to the significant rise in gas prices since the war began. This has arguably put greater political pressure on Trump to reach a deal that re-opens the Strait of Hormuz, at the expense of other stated objectives of the war.

Indeed, over Memorial Day weekend, the Trump administration floated a potential ceasefire extension with Iran that would lead to an opening of the Strait by Iran but would achieve none of the other stated U.S. objectives of the war. While the agreement made reference to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it did little more than lay the groundwork for future talks and required no concessions from Iran.

Conclusion: Was It Worth It?

A recurrent theme in U.S. military interventions is that policymakers tend to exaggerate the benefits and efficacy of using military force and underappreciate the direct (and indirect) costs.

The Iran war is perhaps the quintessential example of this phenomenon. President Trump appeared to believe that a quick strike decapitation campaign against the Iranian regime would lead to swift and overwhelming victory. It did not.

The administration’s stated objectives — ending Iran’s nuclear program, destroying its missile stockpiles and production capabilities, annihilating its navy, and ending Iran’s support for militant groups — have either not been achieved or are of minimal benefit to U.S. national security interests.

What is perhaps most striking about the decision to go to war is that it directly contradicts the administration’s NSS, published only three months before the war began. That document described the Iranian regime as “weakened,” argued that the Middle East should play a less dominant role in U.S. foreign policy, spoke of “a high bar for what constitutes a justified intervention,” and deemphasized nuclear non-proliferation efforts.

Yet, in going to war with Iran, the Trump administration ignored all these elements of its grand strategy.

More astonishingly, the NSS called ensuring that “the Strait of Hormuz remains open, preserving freedom of navigation in all crucial sea lanes” a “core interest” of the United States. Though analysts had long warned that Iran could close the strait if attacked, U.S. officials were seemingly caught off guard, and the economic cost to the U.S. and global economies has been significant.

After only three months, the war has cost the United States at least $29 billion in direct costs and the U.S. economy hundreds of billions in indirect costs. It has killed and wounded U.S. servicemembers, damaged U.S. bases, depleted scarce munitions, raised energy prices, strained relations with partners, and left Washington scrambling to restore the status quo it disrupted. Even if there were tangible benefits to the war, the costs would more than outweigh them.

 Even worse, the war could leave Iran’s nuclear capacity broadly unchanged, its missile force largely intact, its hard-liners empowered, its leverage over the Strait of Hormuz enhanced, and U.S. stockpiles depleted. This is worse than a failure. It is a strategic calamity.

In short, the Iran war is not worth it.