In his seminal work On War, Carl von Clausewitz distinguishes between wars of annihilation, aimed at politically destroying the adversary and obtaining unconditional surrender, and wars waged to acquire territory, with a view to territorial expansion or advantageous negotiations. According to U.S. President Donald Trump, the endgame in Iran is not territorial expansion, but regime change without American boots on the ground. As such, analysts in Washington are quite aware of the fact that the U.S. government must pay high costs to achieve its goal.
This will be even more difficult after the death of seven American soldiers, and at a time when a war against Iran is already unpopular in the U.S. and in Europe. Over the first 13 days of the conflict, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has also insisted that the war with Iran is not open-ended. However, it is difficult to make sense of this war, especially because it is beginning to look like a longer conflict with international implications. Many European states have understood the lessons of the previous wars in the Middle East, and they know that there is no virtue in attacking the wrong targets or destroying heritage sites.
Trump and his cabinet must be careful not to turn this war accidentally against the Islamic Republic into a war against Persian civilization. If, by error, another U.S. Tomahawk cruise missile were to destroy Persepolis or the Blue Mosque of Isfahan, it would be a historical error the Iranian people would never pardon—comparable to destroying the Palace of Versailles or the Colosseum in Rome.
After thirteen days of war, the human and economic costs have increased alarmingly—and not only for Iran and the United States, but for all countries indirectly involved in the conflict. So far, seven U.S. service members and over 1,500 people in Iran have been killed. American involvement is already estimated to have cost Washington around $3.7 billion. It goes without saying that American taxpayers will add this cost to growing inflation and the increasing fuel costs in the near future. The war is already unpopular in many world capitals, including across much of Europe, and this will be a significant handicap for Republicans as November’s midterms loom in the horizon.
As for the Iranian state, we must understand that it behaves as a non-rational actor ready to inflict a lot of damage to its geopolitical surroundings in order to survive. Iran is inflicting maximum pain on the U.S. and its allies in order to stay in power. Despite warnings from Turkey and several European countries—who are looking for ways to correct the wrongdoings of Trump and keep the Strait of Hormuz open—Iran has continued to take provocative steps and to behave dangerously, attacking the infrastructure of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.
The irony is that the Iranian state wants to survive with its ideology but without the Iranian people. The murderous absurdity of the regime lies in its desire to survive as a theocratic dictatorship, in opposition to the very nation it governs. The Iranian regime derives its legitimacy from two main sources: Islam and the legacy of the 1979 revolution.
After nearly five decades, the strength of both sources has waned. There is an irreconcilable conflict in today’s Iran between the two competing sovereignties: the divine sovereignty (Velayat-e Faqih) claimed by the Supreme Leader and the popular sovereignty (the will to be an autonomous citizen) claimed by the young and educated Iranian middle class through civil society, democratic ideals, and constitutional rights. In the past 47 years, the challenge to authoritarianism within Iranian society has translated into a culture of dissent among three main social groups: women, youth, and intellectuals. Each of these agents of dissent embodies deliberate and conscious forms of resistance against absolute sovereignty. As the Iranian population expanded from 38.5 million in 1980 to over 92 million in 2025, post-revolutionary society grew more secular and less ideological.
Yet the Iranian regime’s ideological crisis has been accompanied by an erosion of authority and extreme state violence. Over the years, this has manifested in intimidation, repression, and executions by the government and its military and paramilitary forces against its own citizens. In late January 2026, according to multiple reports—including The Guardian and Time magazine, as well as testimonies from medical professionals and morgue staff in Tehran—nearly 35,000 Iranian citizens were killed by the Basij forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) across the country. In the eyes of the world, and of the Trump administration, the level of repression exercised by the Islamic regime exposed both the fragility of the Iranian theocracy and the organizational vulnerability of civil society in Iran. The ultimate aspiration, as repeatedly expressed by the Iranian diaspora across several continents, has been to “take back Iran” with the help of the U.S. and Israeli military forces.
Today, the Iranian regime is an ideological and militarized entity with its back against the wall, capable of nothing but killing or being killed. Iran is also economically disadvantaged and cannot sustain a long-term war with a diminishing stockpile of ballistic missiles and launchers. In just over a week of fighting, Iran launched over 500 missiles and 2,000 drones, consuming a significant portion of its most sophisticated, long-range systems. As is so often the case, the regime has turned its lethal force against its own population. Evidence of this came in a recent interview with Iran’s police chief, Ahmadreza Radan, who—fearing a revival of anti-government demonstrations—warned that “anyone taking to the streets at the enemy’s request will be confronted as an enemy, not a protestor.”
What, then, can humanity do in the face of this lack of common sense on both sides? Perhaps the only way to stop this war and the spread of violence across the Middle East is a shared commitment to peace and to the value of human life, whether Muslim, Jewish, or Christian. We need a minimal morality that could inspire opposition to Iranian tyranny, alongside a strong turn toward common sense—on that recalls the American tradition of civic virtue: the dedication of citizens to the common good and placing public duty above self-interest. Believe it or not, Iranian civil society today is closer to some of the values of the American Revolution than some of those who work in Washington, D.C. and wage wars to expand their capacity to make war. If the 2003 war in Iraq was unjust, the war against Iran is a war against common sense—and against the civic virtues of the Iranian people.
Cover photo: Vehicles move along a highway past a war memorial statue and a billboard depicting Iran’s late supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who was killed in an air strike on February 28, with plumes of black smoke billowing, in Tehran on March 8, 2026. The United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28, sparking swift retaliation by the Islamic republic which responded with missile attacks across the region. (Photo by AFP)
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