Analysis of the 2026 Iran war

Algiers Accords

According to the Point I of the General Declaration of the Algiers Accords between Iran and the United States, the United States pledged that it "is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs."^[20]

Iran has sued the US in the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal (IUSCT) in The Hague over the 2026 war, invoking the Algiers Accords.^[21]

United States law

Many legal and military experts said that US actions in Iran are a type that require congressional authorization. They also noted the frequent use of the word "war" in Trump administration communication about the strikes, adding further credibility to the claim that the Trump administration had bypassed congressional war powers. Rubio said that the Trump administration had followed the War Powers Resolution, but questioned whether it was legally binding.^[9] Multiple American presidents and administrations have launched wars or military operations without congressional approval.^[22] Legal experts have argued that Trump's actions in Iran can be distinguished from prior non-authorized uses of force because the "speculative pre-emptive" justification for this war is comparatively weak when measured against past domestic and international legal rationales.^[23]

US State Department Legal Adviser Reed D. Rubinstein argued that the US strikes on Iran were justified as they were launched "in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally, as well as in the exercise of the United States' own inherent right of self-defense," asserting that the military campaign was not a new war but rather a continuation of the ongoing conflict deriving from "Iran's malign aggression over decades" since the 1979 Islamic Revolution which included the Iranian attacks on Israel in April and October 2024, Iranian proxy warfare against the US and Israel, and Iran's nuclear program.^[24] Qatar Tribune expressed that the justifications for war against Iran by American officials was reminiscent of 2003 where like the argument of supposed weapons of mass destruction construction by Iraq (WMDs), war proponents argued that Iran was also pursuing weapons of mass destruction or similar weapons and that the United States needed to intervene militarily against it.^[25]

On 13 March, the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated "... no quarter, no mercy for our enemies." Aside from being "especially prohibited" in international law to "declare that no quarter will be given," it is also prohibited in the US Department of Defense's own law of war manual. Hegseth's statement likely violates US War Crimes statute 18 U.S.C. § 2441.^[10]

On 5 April, Trump repeatedly threatened to bomb all of Iran's bridges and power plants if it did not agree to a deal to end the war, setting a deadline of 8:00 p.m. EDT on 7 April. Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that "a whole civilization will die" if Iran refused to comply.^[26] Lieutenant Colonel Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School, told PBS News, that targeting electricity systems could affect many civilian facilities including hospitals and access to clean water, and cause the civilian population to feel terrified of such potential broad impacts. VanLandingham said Trump's rhetoric could constitute a violation of US law, which prohibits "measures of intimidation against a civilian population", including primarily trying to "sow terror amongst that civilian population".^[27]

International law

The joint US–Israeli attacks on Iran are widely considered illegal under international law, as they violate the UN Charter's prohibition on the use of force, because the attacks fail to meet the criteria for self-defense and lack authorization from the United Nations Security Council.^[28][11][12] There is no recognized legal basis for preventive war or forcible regime change.^[29] The attacks have been, therefore, considered a war of aggression.^{[19][30][13][14]}

Ben Saul, United Nations special rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism, stated that Iran had not enriched uranium to the point of building a nuclear device, that experts agreed Iran did not possess a nuclear weapon, and that the case was nowhere close to being self-defense against an imminent attack.^[28] Don Rothwell, a professor of international law at the Australian National University, stated that the UN Security council did not pass a resolution to attack Iran and had no legal basis for justifying use of force.^[28] The Law Society Journal noted that striking Iran during active negotiations was against the principles of good faith outlined in Article 2(2) of the UN Charter.^[31]

According to The Guardian, under international law, Iran has the right to attack US and Israeli military targets following their attacks on Iran, however, Iranian attacks against civilians and against countries not party to the conflict are illegal.^[11] The blocking of the strait of Hormuz by Iran was described as a violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.^[32] Amnesty International declared Iran's recruiting of child soldiers as a war crime.^[33][34] The US naval blockade of Iran was described as legitimate under international law of naval warfare by Australian legal expert Donald Rothwell, though the UN specialized agency International Maritime Organization insisted that there is "no legal basis in international law" for such action.^[35]

US President Trump had threatened to destroy all the bridges and power plants in Iran and said the country will be brought "back to the Stone Ages, where they belong," if it does not agree to a deal to end the war or reopen the Strait of Hormuz.^[36][37][38] According to legal scholar Tom Dannenbaum at Stanford Law School, Robert Goldman, a war crimes expert at the American University Washington College of Law, and Sarah Yager, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, targeting Iranian infrastructure, including power plants, would violate international law if it causes harm to civilians that is excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage.^[39] Although immediate prosecution of Trump administration officials for alleged war crimes is unlikely (similar to Benjamin Netanyahu over the Gaza war), such prosecutions in principle can be brought by any country exercising universal jurisdiction at any time in the future.^[40]

Luis Moreno Ocampo, the founding chief prosecutor of the ICC, argued that threats by Donald Trump to destroy Iranian infrastructure, alongside mutual attacks on energy infrastructure by Iran and Israel, do not constitute legitimate military targets under international humanitarian law and are war crimes under the Rome Statute. Ocampo likened these actions to the Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure that led to ICC indictments.^[41] Stephen J. Rapp, former US ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, said that such conduct risks making the US a rogue state. He and two other international law experts interviewed by NBC News said that Trump's threats alone could potentially constitute a war crime.^[38]

More than 100 international law experts signed an open letter in Just Security,^[10] expressing "profound concern" over "serious violations of international law", namely:^[12]

• violation of the UN Charter by attacking Iran^[10]
• violations of international humanitarian law by targeting political leaders with no military role, oil and gas infrastructure (including attack on South Pars), and water desalination plants (e.g. in Iran and Bahrain)^[10]
• rhetoric and threats from officials, including the threat of denial of quarter by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, dismissal of rules of engagement and international law by Trump and Hegseth, and threats on energy infrastructure by Trump administration.^[10]
• the US Defense Department's systematic weakening of the protections meant to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law, including removing senior military lawyers and replacing military judge advocates general, undermining legal oversight of combat operations, as well as abolishing mechanisms designed to limit harm to civilians.^[10]

Iranian military strategy and effectiveness

The quicker Iranian response relative to that of the Twelve-Day War suggests a change in Iran's command structure.^{[42][43][44][45]}

According to senior adviser to the UAE president Dr. Anwar Gargash Iran's strategy was actually to make the Gulf states' security closer to the US. Iran's targeting of Gulf states may also be intended to increase energy prices globally, further putting global pressure on the US.^[46]

Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz

The war unexpectedly showed Iran's most important tool is neither its missile program nor its nuclear program, but the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz, which quickly put pressure on US and its allies.^[47] International Crisis Group's Iran Project director Ali Vaez stated, "In the attempt to try to prevent Iran from developing a weapon of mass destruction, the US handed Iran a weapon of mass disruption" in the form of weaponized control over the Strait of Hormuz.^[48] According to Frank Gardner, Iran has effectively "broken out of its box".^[49]

Internal Iranian politics

On 17 April 2026, Abdullah Mohtadi of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan viewed the Islamic Republic as having been "[in]sufficiently weakened" by the war for Iranian Kurdish groups to take action towards their goal of federalism in Iran, which, according to Mohtadi, they see as necessary for democratisation.^[50]

American negotiating strategy and effectiveness

During the 2026 Iran war ceasefire, analyst Trita Parsi argued that Trump had become increasingly desperate for a deal with Iran to the point of even denying ceasefire violations by Iran to maintain it. Furthermore, he suggested that Trump was looking for a "silver bullet" instead of serious negotiations with Iranian leaders.^[51] In response to Trump's inability to pivot out of the Iran war with what he wanted, an abbreviation variant of Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO) called "NACHO", or "Not A Chance Hormuz Opens", was created.^[52]

American geopolitical status

Several articles starting from April onward have argued that the 2026 Iran war has weakened the United States' reputation and geopolitical status, resulting in American decline. The Conversation listed several reasons for why the United States has been in a weakened position, namely loss of influence in the Middle East, limiting its geopolitical involvement in other regions, the massive economic crisis from the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis, and the rupture of the world order leading to loss of American global power.^[53] In the opinions column of The New York Times, journalist Christopher Caldwell stated that the war had "turned into a watershed in the decline of the American empire" because of its overextension. He argued that while the so-called "Donroe Doctrine", practiced in execution by the 2026 United States intervention in Venezuela, the Greenland crisis, and the 2026 Cuban crisis, was a "logical, even an admirable, foreign policy plan", the Iran war was illogical because it was not "defensive" for foreign policy purposes and became another trap as another "Middle Eastern military misadventure".^[54] The Nation wrote that this consensus was becoming more common outside of pro-Trump partisan circles of "knee-jerk loyalty".^[55] The Salt Lake Tribune criticized Trump for his exaggerations of Iranian missiles and nuclear weapons being able to hit Americans and for initially predicting a quick victory where Iran would surrender and change their leadership. The article further lambasted him for his war drastically increasing gas prices and for contradicting demands including by repeatedly backing down in a "TACO" (Trump always chickens out) process.^[56] Neoconservative scholar Robert Kagan in The Atlantic wrote that the United States had suffered a "total defeat" that was unprecedented in its history as a result of its war in Iran, arguing that there was no way for it to return to the status quo ante and no way to an "American triumph" for it. He suggested that Iran would have no interest in reopening the Strait of Hormuz and that Trump was too unreliable an actor given how he previously boasted of a surprise attack like the 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor. As a result, he continued, the war helped accelerate the world into an increasingly post-American world order, where the United States' "once-dominant position in the Gulf" will have been the first to have been lost.^[57]

American military strategy and effectiveness

Analysts argued that deliberate reductions to US intelligence capacity in the period preceding the conflict had created structural limitations on American operational effectiveness, with the rescue of the downed F-15E crew exposing the extent to which institutional erosion was constraining strategic outcomes across multiple theatres.^[58] The Atlantic noted the diplomatic strain between Trump and European NATO member nations, as Trump had previously not consulted them regarding the entrance to war against Iran and had since lashed out at them for not joining the war campaign against it.^[59]

The Sunday Guardian referred to Trump as "coward-in-chief" for failing to use his massive military advantage to fully defeat the Islamic Republic, thus making it appear as if the US is losing against Iran despite the technical stalemate.^[60] The New York Times opinion columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote that the Iran war demonstrated that Trump had acted less as commander-in-chief and more as "commander-in-thief". He argued that by alienating Democrats and prioritizing an Anti-Weaponization Fund as part of Trump v. Internal Revenue Service to the point of condemnation by some Republicans, Trump had failed to unite his country to war against Iran. Furthermore, he continued, Trump had also alienated traditional allies of the US from the war by emphasizing expansionism against them, creating economic pressure against them, and not consulting NATO allies on the war beforehand.^[61]

China

The war has been described as having various benefits and drawbacks for Chinese geopolitical interests. The BBC reported that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the war in Iran may weaken Chinese interests in countries that rely on Gulf countries' oil.^[62] US aggression in Iran played into Chinese rhetoric that frames China as "a pillar of stability in contrast to an unpredictable America." Analysts noted that China has interests both in Iran and in the Gulf states, and that Gulf states may seek closer ties with China after facing attacks from Iran because of their US-alignment. However, analysts also pointed to the loss of discounted sanctioned oil and the inflationary impact of oil scarcity as potential economic drawbacks to the war.^[63] Ashok Swain suggested that Trump's coercive diplomacy and expansionist actions against Iran would erode American power due to overstretching its resources in favor of China.^[64]

The Diplomat argued that the United States, rather than China as US foreign policy analysts initially framed, became the revisionist power of the 2020s undermining international law and world peace, as evident by the former having started "an unprovoked war against Iran for reasons no one in the Trump administration seems to know" among many other imperialist and expansionist actions.^[65]

Israel

Based on the Israeli political landscape and enthusiasm for the war, Daniel Levy wrote on 30 March that its interests may be opposed to all who are seeking an end to the war. He said the Lebanon theatre of war was another campaign with no clear endgame. He concluded that "Israel will continue to encourage and provoke escalation and to undermine any negotiation or ceasefire talks, including nudging the US towards ground operations." He said Israel's actions accelerate US global decline.^[66]

Russia

The Washington Institute said that the war had been a setback for Russian influence in the region. However, they also noted that it may distract the United States from the war in Ukraine.^[67]

American expansionism

Numerous critics and analysts identified the US-Israeli attack as a more open embrace of expansionism^[15][16] and imperialism by the Trump administration.^[17][18] Similarly, Israel's confrontation with Iran and occupation of Lebanese territory and resources has been considered to be territorial and influential expansionism, especially in relation to the "Greater Israel" ideology.^[68][69][70] The US–Israeli attack is widely considered a "war of choice".^[71] According to the founding chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno Ocampo, the US war on Iran is comparable to Russia's war in Ukraine, adding that the world is going from the "rules-based system" to the "rule of the man", which is "not a viable world".^[19] A number of US and Israeli officials, including Hegseth,^[72] have made religious justifications for the war.^[73][74]

Gilbert Achcar said that the US was practicing a modernized version of gunboat diplomacy.^[75] Gokay and Hamourtziadou connected the attack on Iran with a longstanding pattern of US interventions in the region. They also connected the attack on Iran in the midst of negotiations to the history of United States treaty-breaking during westward expansion.^[76] Saeed Shah wrote that many in the Global South do not view the war as having the moral purpose that the US and many of its allies asserted, and that they instead see the war as a failure of diplomacy, and an act of aggression against a weaker nation. International relations experts said that the erosion of international law was making nations in the Global South feel insecure, and more likely to support a coalition against US interests.^[77]

Nuclear proliferation

An analyst at Eagle Intelligence Reports argued that the strikes reinforced North Korea's nuclear deterrence calculus, with Pyongyang interpreting the military action against a non-nuclear Iran as strategic validation of its own weapons programme as essential to regime survival, and that the conflict would accelerate North Korean nuclear expansion while making denuclearisation talks "almost unimaginable in the foreseeable future".^[78]

The war took place while non-proliferation of nuclear weapons was "already under significant strain." In February 2026, New START expired. Additionally, as "lessons of the Cold War and the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons fade from living memory", public support to possess nuclear weapons has reportedly risen in several countries.^[79] The war along with the histories of other countries which have given up their ambitions for nuclear weapons or the weapons themselves such as Iraq, Libya and Ukraine may also incentivize nuclear proliferation.^[80][81][82]

Suez crisis

Multiple sources compared the closure of the Strait to the Suez Crisis, suggesting that it would similarly result in a strategic failure for the US.^[83][84][85]

Vietnam War

Foreign Policy considered the Iran war to be a major defeat for the US, one that was far bigger than that in the Vietnam War. The author wrote that while the Iran war looked like a typical US defeat in other conflicts, Trump's loss marked an unambiguously weaker US geopolitical position with its strategic objectives being weakened.^[86]

Iraq War

Financial Times recalled the "you break it, you buy it" rule used previously during the Iraq War, where the US has caused the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis that threatened to overturn the global oil supply and hence "owned" that problem.^[87]