The accomplishments of 100 days of war on Iran are undeniable
By: Adolfo Franco (Al Jazeera)
Yes, these are real accomplishments. But the costs are explicitly measured by unknown alternatives rather than these accomplishments. We are to believe the war prevented Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon which cannot be proven or refuted. It's a meaningless justification for a meaningless war.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
June 7, 2026 -- Let us be clear about what happened on February 28. The United States, in concert with Israel, went to war with Iran. It was not the proxy war of attrition that Washington had tolerated for four decades, not the pinprick retaliatory strikes that have been the preferred narcotic of timid administrations, but real war, with the declared intention of breaking the regime's military power and ending its nuclear ambitions once and for all.
One hundred days later, the question is not whether this was worth doing. It manifestly was. The question is whether Washington has the fortitude to see it through.
One must consider what has already been achieved, and consider it honestly. Iran's ballistic missile programme — the crown jewel of its deterrent strategy, the instrument with which it held the entire Middle East hostage — has been largely destroyed. Its navy has been decimated. The nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, into which the regime poured decades of effort and tens of billions of dollars, have been reduced to rubble.
Whatever the carping of intelligence bureaucrats with agendas and axes to grind, the International Atomic Energy Agency's own assessment was unambiguous: the damage was enormous. The radical regime spent a generation building towards developing nuclear weapons. That project is finished. The degrading of Iran's military will take years to reverse.
And then there is the supreme leader.
For 37 years, Ali Khamenei was the Islamic Republic. He was its theologian, its strategist, its supreme will. He built Hezbollah into a terrorist state within a legitimate state. He sustained Hamas through every Israeli military campaign. He dispatched the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to prop up Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, to arm the Houthis, and to establish militias across Iraq.
He kept the hostage-taking, the terrorism and the assassination plots running as instruments of state policy — while Western capitals issued demarches, held conferences and imagined that engagement might moderate him. It did not moderate him. It never was going to moderate him. He is gone now, killed on the first day of a war he spent his life making inevitable.
The critics — and there is no shortage of them, in the faculty lounges and the think tank corridors and the op-ed pages of the familiar publications — insist that regime change has not materialised. They say this as though it settles the argument. It does not.
Totalitarian regimes do not fall on a schedule convenient for their opponents. The Soviet Union did not collapse the morning after US President Ronald Reagan deployed Pershing II missiles in Europe. The process of terminal decline is exactly that — a process.
What we can say with confidence is that the Islamic Republic today bears no resemblance to the Islamic Republic of February 27. Its supreme leader has been liquidated. Dozens of its senior officials are dead. Its IRGC command structure has been gutted. Its economy, already on life support before the first bomb fell, has now suffered $270bn in damage by the regime's own admission. Its currency is in catastrophic freefall.
The Iranian people cheered in the streets of Tehran when Khamenei died. That is not nothing. That is, in fact, everything — the seed of something that, given time and resolve, will flower into genuine change.
The costs have been real. No serious person denies it. But costs must be weighed against alternatives, and here the critics fall conspicuously silent. What was the alternative? Another decade of nuclear negotiations that Tehran would string along while its centrifuges spun? Another round of sanctions that hurt ordinary Iranians while leaving the IRGC untouched? Another "maximum pressure" campaign that produced maximum Iranian defiance?
The foreign policy establishment that now clucks about oil prices and Pentagon budgets is the same establishment that spent 40 years managing, containing and accommodating a regime that was trying to build a nuclear bomb, directing proxy armies and murdering Americans. Their counsel had a cost too; it just was not itemised on a Pentagon spreadsheet.
The Islamabad ceasefire says everything one needs to know about the actual balance of power in this conflict. Iran did not agree to pause because it was winning. It agreed because it was desperate, because its military had been broken, its economy was bleeding out and it needed time to breathe.
The Strait of Hormuz situation is a nuisance, not a strategic reversal. The naval blockade is costing Tehran $500m a day. The squeeze will intensify. The regime's capacity to sustain resistance will diminish. Iran's maximalist demands for reparations are the language of a regime performing defiance for a domestic audience, not the language of a power that believes it holds the cards.
One hundred days ago, the Islamic Republic was the pre-eminent destabilising force in the Middle East, armed with ballistic missiles and a near-nuclear capability and a network of proxies stretching from the Mediterranean to the Gulf. Today, its supreme leader is dead, its arsenal is shattered, its nuclear programme is in ruins, and its treasury is being drained daily by a US naval blockade.
This is what US power looks like when it is actually applied. It is uncomfortable. It is expensive. It is, by any serious strategic measure, an achievement of historic proportions.
The hardest work remains. But those who refuse to acknowledge what has already been accomplished are not being clear-eyed. They are being willfully blind — and on the question of Iran, willful blindness has always been the more dangerous indulgence.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Adolfo Franco is a Republican political strategist, foreign policy analyst and former surrogate for Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2024 presidential campaigns. He previously served as Assistant Administrator at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2002 to 2007 and as President and Board member of the Inter-American Foundation. Franco has also served as Majority Republican Chief Counsel for the House International Relations Committee. He has worked on Latin American, Caribbean and Cuba policy for more than two decades and appears regularly as a political commentator across international media outlets. He currently serves as Executive Vice President of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, a US advocacy organisation focused on economic policy and business issues.
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The US military really did achieve battlefield wins. But the military has not won the war. The first 100 days of the war have been inconclusive in achieving an end to the war.
A surrogate for President Trump publishing an opinion with a Qatari owned news publication seems more an act of desperation than reassurance. There's little in this opinion that can be considered a victory lap.
Last time I fought against the Iranians we sent them packing. That was in 2010.
It's going to be going for quite a while.
Was back in the '70's. Long before Trump even remotely considered being a politician.
That seems farfetched since everyone is still complaining about Iran's proxies throughout the region. (Iran was fighting ISIS, too. ISIS was a threat to Iran's Shi'ite proxies. If you were fighting Sunni Muslims then you were fighting ISIS, not Iran.)
So, the response is that Iran is just another forever war that even Donald Trump has prolonged?
To you is may seem far fetched. For me and my unit, it was reality.
Every President since the "70's just kicked the can down the road. They all talked about how Iran was a threat but really did nothing about it.. The current President just happened to be the one that did something.
Now that President Trump has 'done something', Iran is no longer a threat? We can now stop wasting taxpayer money on the Middle East?
Trump has wasted $30 billion of military assets and caused at least another $30 billion in damages, at a minimum. Why not use that $60 billion to make a deal with Iran? Trump could have bought the goddammed centrifuges and uranium for what this war is costing. Why doesn't the dealmaker make a deal to buy the peace? He pisses money away on everything else.
I've heard all sorts of excuses for a fuck-up but still have no idea how any of this benefits the United States. The military only wounded Iran. The military failed to obtain a surrender. The military did not win the war. We're expected to believe that the Iranians won't be pissed off and choose to fight. To what end? How does any of this benefit the United States?
I'm not the one implying that. Even remotely.
Is that on top of the billions sent by previous administration? Seems there are many that were silent when money was just handed over vs. setting up for military action.
Like a previous administration? We see how that ended.
I see all kind of benefits for the US. The key is for one to step outside of their bubble and take an objective look around.
Could have taken them out completely.
If that were the objective then I would agree. But, that wasn't the objective.
The Iranians behind the terrorist regime will continue to fight they same way they have fought for the last 50 years. The problem is you are looking for a force on force fight when that is not how this has been or will be fought.
The Barack Obama brought Iran into compliance with the non-proliferation treaty. The IAEA reported that Iran was complying with the non-proliferation treaty and the JCPOA. That previous administration made a deal that worked by giving Iran their own money.
Donald Trump is the dealmaker. Why didn't Trump try to buy Iran's nuclear program like a businessman? Doesn't Trump know how to make a deal?
If the President is calling for unconditional surrender then what is the objective? The military did not choose to attack Iran; they were ordered to. And the military does not set the objective for a war; the President does. So, what exactly was the objective of the war if we're supposed to ignore Trump?
So, what are the Iranians supposed to do? Does Iran have a right to exist as a nation? Does Iran have a right to self determination? Is Iran allowed to participate in the global economy?
The US is the intruder in Persian Gulf. The US has destabilized the Persian Gulf region several times. And the cost for US involvement in the Persian Gulf and Middle East has been dumped on the American taxpayer. And American taxpayers have never received any benefit from that tax burden.
We see how that ended.
Every preceding President called for Iran to give up their nuclear arsenal. Objective hasn't changed. What was being done changed. And the ONLY reason people have their panties in a wad is because of WHO that President is.
If you haven't noticed, what little strikes have taken place have been very selective. Much of the population does not support what the Iran leadership have been doing. You may not acknowledge it but they did celebrate those strikes. As far as what should they do? Continue their fight. This regeim will fall faster from battles within rather than an outside country stepping in.
Now ask yourself why.
Not by a long shot. Radicalism has done and is still causing far more damage than the US has.
That's what happens when "allies" don't step up. We tried to work with the Spanish in Bala Murghab in 2010. It was a nightmare.
It ended because President Trump abrogated the agreement. Iran did not break the agreement; that's on Donald Trump.
Iran does not have a nuclear arsenal. The IAEA confirmed that Iran was abiding by the restrictions on enrichment restrictions in the JCPOA.
Yep, that's the question. Why? As I have already said, I don't know why.
Even the Persian Gulf allies have stated that the US destabilized the region.
Like Saudi Arabia? Oman? Qatar?
"So that red sports car you bought seemed like a good deal."
"I'm not so sure, you should see how it ended..."
But trump said we won the war on day 2? So why are we still fighting a war? Trump said no new wars.... Trump is a fucked up liar. PERIOD.