Washington no longer has control over the war with Iran

29 July 2026 is not a date like any other in the calendar of this war. Within a twenty-four-hour period, events that had until then remained separate came to a head: Iran struck American bases in Jordan, Washington responded by bombing the IRGC, Riyadh openly entered the war, Damietta demonstrated that not even the Mediterranean is now outside the conflict, and, whilst all this was happening, Zelensky was discussing industrial cooperation on the Patriot system with Trump, two days after Ukrainian drones had struck for the first time in the Caspian Sea, along the military supply route between Russia and Iran. The war with Iran has already spread beyond the boundaries within which it had been confined until yesterday.

Iran’s strategy has a coherent internal logic, albeit one that is uncomfortable to acknowledge. Tehran does not respond blow for blow: it opens up multiple fronts. This is a tactic that is rapidly becoming established within the theory of asymmetric warfare, which involves forcing the stronger adversary to defend an ever-widening perimeter, thereby diluting its offensive capability. Rather than a sign of desperation, the Iranian attacks are deliberate choices. Two anonymous Iranian sources told the New York Times that the attack on Damietta was designed to demonstrate that global energy supplies can be disrupted even more severely if Tehran decides to escalate matters. The vessel struck was an American tanker moored in an Egyptian port a stone’s throw from the Suez Canal, and the fact that the target was not Cairo but Washington suggests that, for Tehran, any accessible port is a potential target.

The US challenge is not strictly military in nature. The offensive capability continues to function: Iranian missiles targeting Jordan were shot down, and CENTCOM air strikes have hit dozens of IRGC targets. What is lacking is not the ability to strike, but a target towards which to direct it. Jason Campbell of the Middle East Institute has observed that for months now, no Trump administration official has mentioned the nuclear programme, missiles or proxy forces as objectives of the war. The only remaining objective is the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and even there, Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM, has privately indicated that the air strikes in the strait have reached the limits of their effectiveness. General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned that resuming large-scale operations would deplete stocks of interceptors. To overcome this problem, Cooper has drawn up a plan for an intensive ten- to fourteen-day campaign aimed at destroying enough missiles to reduce defensive requirements. That logic has already shown its limitations in the early stages of the war, when the United States bombed Iran’s underground complexes only to see Tehran restore the launchers and start again.

Against the backdrop of this stalemate, Saudi Arabia has crossed a threshold it had been trying to avoid for six months. Joint US-Saudi Arabian air strikes against the PMF (Popular Mobilisation Forces, pro-Iranian militias formally integrated into the Iraqi security forces) have killed at least twenty fighters and six Iranian advisers. Riyadh had previously carried out covert attacks, but had always denied them. This time, the Saudi Ministry of Defence issued an official statement, asserting its right to respond to aggression, whilst making it clear that it was not seeking escalation. Claiming responsibility for the attack whilst denying any desire for escalation amounts to acknowledging that the cost of ambiguity has become greater than the cost of exposure. Abdulaziz Alghashian of the Gulf International Forum explained that Riyadh felt its reluctance was being interpreted as acceptance of the attacks. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had, in recent years, been working towards a gradual rapprochement with Tehran, in the belief that the pragmatic approach was the safest. The war has swept that strategy away, and with it the neutral stance that Riyadh had sought to maintain.

In this context, the player undergoing the most rapid transformation is neither Washington nor Riyadh. It is Kyiv. In four years, Ukraine has followed an unprecedented trajectory: from an agricultural nation under invasion, it has transformed itself into a country that is making its mark in the Caspian, transferring anti-drone technology to the Gulf and presenting itself in Washington to negotiate from a position of considerable potential capability rather than begging for aid. The licence for the co-production of Patriot interceptors and the bipartisan vote in the Senate for new sanctions against Moscow point to a redefined relationship on a different footing from that of last February’s disastrous meeting, when Zelensky was publicly humiliated by President Trump. All this is taking place in a region where the American presence is proving insufficient in terms of military and intelligence coverage.

It is against this backdrop that the Reuters report – which should be treated with the caution befitting an unconfirmed source – should be read: it claims that Beijing has begun supplying Iran with portable surface-to-air missile systems, routing them via Pakistan. China and Pakistan deny this, but the timing speaks volumes regardless of the military value of the weapons in question, which is tactical and limited. For months, Beijing has been watching a strategic adversary squander interceptors, political options and international credibility in a conflict from which it sees no way out. If Beijing has chosen this moment to act, the real target of the move is not Tehran but Washington, with all that this implies for Taipei.

The most bitter paradox of this war is that Washington’s current difficulties appear to be, at least in part, the result of its initial success. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was eliminated in the opening raid, carried out by Israel on the basis of American intelligence. His son Mojtaba was appointed in his place; he is described by American intelligence as more radical and more open to pursuing nuclear weapons than his father was after decades of formal rejection. Over recent decades, the system built around Ali Khamenei had demonstrated a remarkable ability to calibrate escalation: striking hard enough to save face, but not hard enough to cause the situation to explode. That capacity for self-restraint is not hereditary. The new Iranian leaders, Nasr observed, want to inflict as much damage as possible to deter a future war against their country.

Allison Minor and Nate Swanson of the Atlantic Council have identified the conceptual trap in which Washington finds itself: ‘the sunk-cost fallacy’, that line of reasoning which drives one to continue with a course of action simply because one has already spent considerable resources on it, even if it is no longer in one’s best interests and it would be better to abandon it. The June memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran foundered on the ambiguity of the clauses concerning the Strait of Hormuz. Both sides interpreted them to suit their own interests. The two analysts conclude that this represents, in their view, the only politically viable way out: namely, a UN-led mechanism for monitoring transit through the strait, with Iran recognised as a participant and compensated by the reinstatement of the general licence for oil exports. This would be a difficult outcome to present as a victory for the Trump Administration, but it would nonetheless be a manageable outcome, given that time is increasingly narrowing the window of acceptable options.

Five months after the start of the conflict, eighteen American servicemen have died and over six hundred have been wounded; the Strait of Hormuz remains closed; and the man who governed Iran with sufficient pragmatism to avert the worst has been replaced by his son. The war is not escalating out of control. The problem is more serious: the events of recent weeks show that none of the parties involved now seems capable of truly controlling its course.