Days have passed since the start of the U.S.-Israel-Iran war. Iran is weakening, yet it is not losing the war. In fact, if the United States were to announce at this point that it is halting the war, Iran would declare victory.

Iran’s military structure has suffered serious damage. From production facilities to its navy, from weapons stockpiles to various infrastructures, the scale of destruction is immense. Human losses are increasing day by day. Even the smallest piece of military or security-related infrastructure has become a target. However, because Iran anticipated this from the outset, it views these developments as a "calculated situation” within the course of the war.

Iran’s most critical strategy is to generate costs for the targeted countries, the region, and the global system, while preserving its internal cohesion. Iran’s social and political resilience has not collapsed. On the contrary, due to the costs it is imposing on the global system, particularly on the Gulf countries, Israel and the U.S., social and political resistance inside Iran is increasing rather than weakening.

Although Iran’s attack capacity has declined quantitatively, its qualitative ability to impose costs continues. Iran’s most important geopolitical asset in the war is its control over the Strait of Hormuz. Whether Hormuz is formally closed or open is not the decisive factor. What is truly decisive is the ability to sustain insecurity in the Strait through asymmetric attacks.

The current uncertainty in energy markets and the growing risks in maritime trade are generating major costs for the entire world, particularly for Asian and European markets. In a scenario where Iranian attacks continue, ensuring the security of Hormuz becomes extremely difficult.

Iran wants to prolong the war. Even if it suffers major losses, the fact that it can endure for a long period and continue generating costs will be seen as an opportunity to establish a new form of hegemony over both regional countries and its own domestic public.

Over the past 20 years, Iran has experienced waves of growing social opposition against the regime, each wave stronger than the previous one, at times even forcing the regime toward change. The government will also use this war as a source of legitimacy to suppress the increasingly powerful domestic opposition. In this context, Iran will not consider the losses it suffers as a fundamental problem.

As efforts to stop the war intensify, Iran will approach negotiations with the U.S. with suspicion and will openly say that it does not trust Washington. In both wars, the U.S. used negotiations as a tactical element of the attack. Therefore, establishing a negotiation table and reaching a cease-fire may prove more difficult than expected.

Although Trump has made contradictory statements about the course of the war, sometimes within the span of hours, it is clear that he does not want the war to drag on. It is widely believed that Trump was pushed into the war with the expectation that Iran would collapse quickly, through various traps and within a short and unplanned timeframe.

Looking at the course of the war, U.S. President Donald Trump is not currently in a position where he can say, "I achieved victory.” Yet, a prolonged war increasingly harms both U.S. interests and Trump’s political and personal image.

Israel, on the other hand, does not want the war to end. It believes that if the war ends under current conditions, Iran will recover quickly and may even become more determined to pursue nuclear weapons afterward.

At the same time, Israel wants to prolong the war and push the Middle East toward deeper instability. In doing so, it believes the path and timeline toward its radical plans will shorten. By expanding the war across the Middle East, Israel seeks to exploit the pressure it can exert on both the U.S. and Trump to the fullest extent.

The countries benefiting most from this war are Russia and even China. In a conflict involving the U.S., they have had the opportunity to observe America’s capabilities, its arms production and operational capacity, and therefore its weaknesses. For Russia, the U.S.’ strategic shift toward the Middle East provides a certain relief. Rising energy prices also work to the advantage of the Russian economy.

Türkiye’s foreign policy is not based solely on interests; it is also value-oriented. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan frequently emphasizes this point. Türkiye sees that the longer the war continues, the greater the costs will become and the more regional stability will deteriorate. While trying to keep the war at a distance, Türkiye is also working to activate diplomacy by maintaining dialogue with all sides, just as it did during the Russia-Ukraine war.

While standing against Israeli aggression, Türkiye also considers Iran’s continued retaliation against the Gulf countries to be a serious mistake, and it openly conveys this as a warning to Iran.