QAMAR BASHIR
History sometimes reaches a point where confidence collapses faster than armies do. The ongoing war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran appears to be one of those moments. What was expected in Washington and Tel Aviv to be a short, punishing campaign has instead become a prolonged regional confrontation with mounting military losses, deepening economic consequences, and a growing challenge to the long-assumed aura of invincibility surrounding both Israel and the United States.
What makes the present war historically important is not merely that it interrupted diplomacy again, but that it exposed how wrong the original assumptions were. If one follows the public statements of American officials from the start of this war, the message was unmistakable: Iran would be broken quickly, its strategic capabilities would be shattered, its people might rise, and the regime would either capitulate or collapse. Instead, the opposite has happened. Iran has not folded. It has absorbed punishment, retaliated across the region, and shown that even under intense assault it can still impose military and economic costs on its adversaries. That alone has altered the psychological landscape of the war.
The human toll illustrates the scale of the confrontation. Country-by-country tally as of March 11, at least 1,270 people have been killed in Iran, while Iranian officials have in some statements put the civilian toll even higher. In Israel, 12 people had been reported killed. For the United States, seven service members killed and around 150 wounded, with several of the wounded suffering serious injuries. Additional deaths across the Gulf and neighboring states drawn into the conflict, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria, underscoring how far this war has spread beyond its original battlefield.
These casualties are strategically significant because they undermine the image of a clean, one-sided campaign. American bases have been hit. Troops have been killed. Installations have been damaged. Israeli civilian life has been repeatedly disrupted by missile and drone alerts. Iran, of course, has suffered by far the heaviest losses in lives and infrastructure, but the core point remains: the war has not stayed cost-free for those who initiated it. The United States, despite possessing the world’s most advanced military machine, has not been able to shield all of its personnel or quickly neutralize Iran’s retaliatory capacity. That matters politically as much as militarily.
The financial cost is also becoming harder to ignore. The Trump administration told Congress the first two days of the war consumed about $5.6 billion in munitions alone. Another report said the administration estimated the first six days had already cost the United States more than $11 billion. These are enormous sums for less than a week of war, and they do not capture the full future bill if the conflict drags on.
Israel is also paying a steep price. Israel’s Finance Ministry estimated damage to the Israeli economy could exceed 9 billion shekels a week, or about $2.93 billion weekly, under war conditions. That figure reflects not just the direct expense of operations, but disruption to business, reserve mobilization, emergency response, and the continuing burden of missile defense. In other words, even before counting long-term reconstruction or strategic loss, the war is costing Israel billions every week.
Iran’s cost is harder to quantify precisely in credible public reporting, but it is clearly immense. The country has suffered extensive strikes on military, energy, industrial, and civilian-linked infrastructure, alongside the highest death toll of any party to the conflict. So while the United States and Israel are paying in cash, mobilization, and casualties, Iran is paying in blood, damaged infrastructure, and wider economic disruption. That asymmetry is real. But Tehran’s apparent response has been to widen the cost field so that others pay too.
That is where the Strait of Hormuz becomes central. About one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply normally passes through this chokepoint and that tanker traffic effectively collapsed after the war began. Iran declared the strait closed and threatened ships trying to pass, while war-risk insurance surged and hundreds of vessels were left backed up in and around the Gulf. Reuters also reported damaged tankers, cancelled war-risk cover, and a near paralysis of the route.
Iran may not be able to match the United States in airpower, but it can make the world pay for a war imposed on it. By choking the route, raising the risk premium, and forcing shipping and energy markets into crisis, Iran can externalize part of the war’s cost. Instead of bearing the burden alone, it can push that burden onto energy importers, insurers, freight operators, and ultimately consumers around the world.
That is why the warning from the global shipping sector matters. The head of Maersk warned that the extra cost created by the conflict would be passed through the chain to customers and then to consumers. Shipping rates are rising, freight detours are growing, insurance costs are soaring, and businesses worldwide are already feeling the squeeze from the war’s disruption of Gulf trade. The war is rattling businesses globally, squeezing supplies and raising doubts about critical trade routes.
So the war’s cost is now operating on three levels at once. First, there is the direct military bill: billions for Washington, billions per week for Israel, and severe destruction for Iran. Second, there is the human bill: thousands dead or wounded across Iran, Israel, the United States, and the wider region. Third, there is the global consumer bill: higher oil prices, more expensive shipping, higher insurance, and rising inflation that ordinary people far from the battlefield will end up paying.
If one carefully examines the public statements issued by the United States leadership—from the early declarations of the administration to the confident pronouncements made at the outset of the campaign—it becomes evident that Washington believed the war would be short and decisive.
Senior officials repeatedly suggested that Iran’s military capabilities would be dismantled within days and that overwhelming American power would quickly force Tehran into submission. That assumption has proven profoundly mistaken.
Despite possessing the world’s most powerful military machinery, the United States now finds itself engaged in a conflict that has not unfolded according to its expectations. American bases have come under attack, soldiers have been killed, many others wounded, and several installations across the region have been damaged. The broader political objective of encouraging an uprising inside Iran has also failed to materialize; instead of internal collapse, the conflict appears to have strengthened national unity within the country. In this sense, the war has produced an outcome that few strategists anticipated.
Just as the brief but intense confrontation of June 2025 raised questions about Israel’s long-assumed aura of invincibility, the ongoing conflict of 2026 has begun to cast similar doubts about the ability of the United States to impose swift military outcomes against determined adversaries. The lesson emerging from this war is stark: even the most formidable military power may find that modern conflicts are far more complex, costly, and resistant to quick resolution than early confidence suggests.
Press Secretary to the President (Rtd)
Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France
Former Press Attaché to Malaysia
Former MD, SRBC | Macomb, Michigan
