Iran endures 6 months of US strikes as war hits a costly stalemate

A war that was supposed to be short

Six months ago, US President Donald Trump declared war on Iran and said the operation would take four weeks or less. "We took a little excursion … to get rid of some evil. I think you'll see it's going to be a short-term excursion," he said in an interview days after launching the operation, as reported by ABC Australia.

Half a year and a failed ceasefire later, experts and former US government officials say both sides are locked in a stalemate where prospects for peace are "bleak," according to ABC Australia.

The South China Morning Post describes the war as having reached its "endgame: a costly stalemate." Six months after US and Israeli forces attacked Iran, killing its supreme leader and maiming his son and successor, the Iranian government is under economic siege, but it still holds power and believes it has time on its side, the report says.

From military to economic pressure

The US has announced a shift in strategy, from a military onslaught to an economic one. Rather than bombing Iran, the White House announced an "economic D-Day" where it would sanction countries that do business with Iran instead, according to ABC Australia.

The South China Morning Post reports that Washington's latest measures, announced on Monday, mark a new phase in the conflict that began on February 28, shifting the battlefield from missiles and air strikes to Iran's oil revenues, banks and trading partners. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the United States will cut off the financial lifelines sustaining Iran's economy, while a US-led naval blockade restricts Tehran's oil exports and access to hard currency.

But the threat of crippling new sanctions faces a fundamental problem: Tehran is betting Trump will not take the final step to break the stalemate — aggressively enforcing secondary sanctions on the countries keeping its economy afloat, foremost among them China and India, according to the South China Morning Post.

Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, told the South China Morning Post: "The [Trump] administration is groping in a sort of desperate fashion to try to find a pathway out of this."

Meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian this week declared "the entire world approved our victory and the [US] is hated," as reported by ABC Australia.

A failed ceasefire and renewed threats

The path to a negotiated settlement has been rocky. On June 18, the US and Iran sparked hope when they announced they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU). The deal, in short, was to stop fighting for 60 days while they hashed out a permanent peace plan, according to ABC Australia.

But optimism about the war ending quickly dissipated. Days later, Trump threatened to "blow the shit" out of Iran if it did not keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Iran, after signing the MoU, struck ships that did not follow its approved route through the waterway. By July 8, Trump declared the ceasefire "over," ABC Australia reports.

Experts see a war of attrition

Allison Minor, who served as the director for Arabian Peninsula affairs on the National Security Council during Trump's first administration, told ABC Australia over email: "The conflict is settling into a war of attrition and prospects for a negotiated settlement are bleak." She added: "Both sides seem to think that time is on their side and that they will be able to secure better terms as the other side is worn down by economic and political pressure."

For an agreement to hold, Minor said, both sides must be better off under a negotiated settlement and accountable to commitments. "Neither of these conditions appears to have been met in the Iran context," she told ABC Australia.

Emily Harding, former Iran director on the National Security Council, told ABC Australia that Iranians are "infamous for being really, really good negotiators." She also said the war is unlikely to become a "forever war" like Afghanistan or Iraq because US troops are not on the ground, but occasional exchanges of fire, especially between Israel and Iran, could continue.

Naysan Rafati, senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, told ABC Australia that the "economic squeeze" on the Iranian system is "quite real" and that the US feels the economic sanctions will continue to bite. Elizabeth Dent, US foreign and defence policy expert at the Washington Institute, told ABC Australia that negotiations require both sides to make concessions, and that Iran values survival of the regime above all and will accept hardship if leadership believes surrender threatens that.

The road ahead

Experts say there is a way out of the war, but it will not be easy. Both sides will need to make concessions they do not want to make, yet neither side believes the cost for peace is currently worth paying, according to ABC Australia.

The Trump administration faces pressure from upcoming midterm elections and the need to resolve the Strait of Hormuz issue, ABC Australia reports. Iranian authorities have erected giant anti-US billboards across Tehran, underscoring the domestic political stakes for Tehran.

As the conflict grinds on, the gap between Trump's early promise of a short excursion and the reality of a six-month war of attrition remains stark. Whether economic pressure can force a breakthrough — or whether both sides will continue to hold out — remains the central question of a war that has already outlasted its original timeline.