The ceasefire between Iran, Israel and the United States has sparked not a sense of resolution, but a renewed debate over how victory in Middle Eastern conflicts should actually be measured.
Jeffrey Silverman,
Naturally the fighting will start again, as soon the price of oil can come down to levels that have the average American not seeing red, and attention can be directed elsewhere. Its just postponing the violence. The Israelis and Americans needed a breather, but are evil enough to try again! For now, there are more negotiations ongoing but Iran is refusing to meet until Israel steps back from Lebanon. I predict difficult negotiations with a potential return to combat after the November midterm elections.
What may have appeared early on as a tactical success for Israel or the United States ultimately proved a strategic failure
But already the so-called deal appears to have been still born, Netanyahu says Israel won’t withdraw from Lebanon, flouting the U.S.-Iran deal.
However, what definition of victory or peace are we using?
Political Endurance
It is not simply a matter of who issued the loudest threats, rattled the most sabers, or inflicted the greatest visible damage. Nor is it a scoreboard of strikes and casualties. As always, achieving peace in the Middle East will be a long process.
Victory is increasingly defined by political endurance — who is still standing when the dust settles. It is about who can absorb pressure without collapsing, who can frame themselves as the innocent party in a messy conflict, and who ultimately emerges with their regional position intact — or even strengthened — in the eyes of neighbours and the rest of the world.
But where to start in peeling back the onion layers of the peace deal?
Old Battle Axe
One old battle axe, who is an insider among insiders, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Americans “paid the price” for President Trump’s “mistake” in taking military action against Iran, describing the U.S.-Iranmemorandum of understanding(MOU) as a “real gift to the Iranians.”
She may have a point, at least looking at it from the perspective of the costs, economic and political, and how it has blown back in the faces of Israel and the United States, by starting something that cannot be finished, and all for the arrogant pride and political survival of two megalomaniac politicians who understand nothing beats a war for clinging onto power and trying to be remembered for something.
However, what that might be is open to never-ending discussion, as both Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu will likely not be remembered as having made any good contributions during their regimes.
Peace or merely operational pause?
Pelosi’s framing, telling it as it is, is cost-centric: if military action produced concessions to Iran rather than deterrence, then Washington may have overpaid. Her argument boils down to:
If America incurred military, economic, and diplomatic costs only to accept a deal favourable to Tehran, then the intervention strengthened Iran’s negotiating position. That’s not “Iran won” in explicit language, but it points in that direction.
The ceasefire may be less a peace settlement than a pause dictated by cost, optics, and energy markets. This questions much of the political rhetoric — is this peace or merely an operational pause? — also is being asked by many serious analysts.
Did Israel and the U.S. achieve any strategic objective, or did Iran emerge strengthened politically despite tactical damage?
It is useful to examine three broad schools of thought: mainstream sceptics, realist establishment critics, and alternative or independent media voices. Each camp looks the conflict through a different analytical lens, yet many arrive at a surprisingly similar question: what, exactly, was achieved?
Within mainstream and establishment circles, scepticism has grown over whether the U.S.-Israeli campaign produced durable strategic gains. While supporters of military action point to damaged infrastructure, disrupted command networks, and degraded operational capabilities inside Iran, critics argue these tactical achievements may not translate into lasting political advantage.
Some observers further contend that Washington’s room for escalation was constrained by domestic political pressure, including congressional scrutiny and the threat of renewed War Powers challenges, limiting the administration’s ability to pursue a prolonged campaign.
Among realist critics, Stephen Walt offers one of the clearest frameworks for understanding the conflict’s possible unintended consequences. Walt, a leading scholar of international relations, has long argued that military coercion against Iran often produces results opposite to those intended by policymakers. Rather than weakening the Islamic Republic, sustained external pressure tends to consolidate hard line power and strengthen nationalist sentiment.
As Walt has observed, “Threats and coercion tend to strengthen the very factions in Iran that the United States claims to oppose.”
His argument is rooted in a familiar historical pattern: when states come under external military pressure, internal divisions often narrow as political factions rally around national defence. In Iran’s case, rather than fragmenting the regime or undermining its legitimacy, outside pressure may have reinforced regime cohesion, strengthened hardliners, and elevated the leadership’s standing as defenders of national sovereignty.
Moreover, recent analysis in foreign policy and security publications supports this assessment. Commentators in outlets such as Foreign Affairs and Responsible Statecraft have noted that external attacks—particularly those involving targeted assassinations of military, political, or religious leaders—rarely fracture entrenched regimes. Instead, such actions often trigger a rally-around-the-flag effect, suppressing internal dissent and fostering national cohesion.
This dynamic appears especially relevant in Iran’s case. The government, confronted by a clear external adversary, has been able to recast itself not as an embattled ruling elite but as the defender of national sovereignty. Even populations critical of the regime may temporarily suspend opposition when confronted with a foreign attack.
Under siege, governmental legitimacy can rise rather than decline. Political fragmentation gives way to strategic unity; factional disputes become secondary to national survival. In this environment, deterrence is strengthened not through military superiority alone, but through demonstrated endurance. The ability to absorb punishment and remain politically intact becomes its own form of power.
Viewed through this realist lens, the proposition that Iran “won politically” gains credibility. If victory is defined not by territorial conquest or battlefield dominance but by strategic survival, preserved regime continuity, and enhanced bargaining leverage, then Iran may have emerged from the confrontation in a stronger political position.
Iranian Closed Ranks to Outside Threat
John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago remains one of the most prominent realist voices in contemporary international relations. Known for his blunt assessments of great-power competition, Mearsheimer has earned both praise and criticism for his willingness to challenge mainstream Western foreign policy narratives, particularly regarding NATO expansion and the geopolitical forces surrounding the war in Ukraine.
In his many and timely interviews, lectures, and published essays, he has consistently argued that great powers often create the very security crises they later claim to be managing.
Central to Mearsheimer’s realist framework is the idea that states under pressure respond according to hard strategic logic rather than moral persuasion. As he has repeatedly suggested, great powers frequently mistake punishment for strategy. Military force may succeed in damaging infrastructure, degrading weapons systems, or imposing short-term tactical costs, but such actions rarely alter the core political will of a determined adversary.
Bombing campaigns can weaken physical capabilities, but they seldom compel political surrender. Instead, states facing what they perceive as existential threats often become more entrenched, more unified, and more willing to absorb prolonged hardship. Under sustained external pressure, political elites close ranks, domestic dissent is marginalized, and national survival becomes the organizing principle of state behaviour.
What may have appeared early on as a tactical success for Israel or the United States ultimately proved a strategic failure. Destroying targets is not the same as breaking political resolve, and Iran’s resolve remains unbroken.
Hopefully this story ends with Iran and Lebanon surviving, and keep in mind that Syria is not going to do the bidding of either Israel or the US, as a proxy force to tie down Lebanon and Iran. And both of those regimes, in the language of Israel of the US, are supporters of Hamas. That fact alone complicates any easy claims of strategic victory by Israel or the US. Survival, in conflicts of this nature, often carries its own political meaning.
For now, and while the news cycle lasts, Iran can claim strategic success and will be all the better for it in many ways, and this view is voiced by such alternative news outlooks like the Gray Zone, Consortium News, Responsible Statecraft and NEO, and as I predicted exactly one year in NEO, MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN — Made in Israel?
It is left to the reader to decide as who actually won in Iran and how do we measure victory? I like it, kind of ironic, that many media outlets are now voicing the above slogan from last year’s articles and interviews.
Jeffrey K. Silverman is a freelance journalist and international development specialist, BSc, MSc, based for 30 years in Georgia and the former Soviet Union
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