US-Iran War, Then and Now: How the Landscape Has Changed Since February

Analysts say the positions of Washington and Tehran have changed dramatically since US-Israeli strikes began the war in February. As fears of renewed attacks grow, the world is watching the situation.

Iran says seven oil tankers have caught fire or sustained damage in and around the Strait of Hormuz, as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warns that renewed US attacks could trigger a wider response. Analysts consider a US attack before the November 3 midterm elections unlikely, but sabre-rattling on both sides has raised fears that escalating rhetoric could give way to renewed attacks.

When the United States and Israel first launched strikes on Iran on February 28, the Strait of Hormuz was not even an issue. Before the war, one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies were shipped through the critical Gulf waterway. Talks over Iran's nuclear programme were also under way at the time.

The initial objective of the US-Israeli strikes was to topple Iran's leadership and weaken Tehran-backed groups including Hamas and Hezbollah. The offensive failed to force a change in Iran's government, but Hamas has been severely weakened, with more than 1,400 Palestinians killed since a US-backed 'ceasefire' was announced in October last year as Israel continues to attack Gaza.

After Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the first strikes, Hezbollah's retaliation against northern Israel brought Lebanon into the war in early March. Israel bombed southern Lebanon and the suburbs of Beirut, at one point occupied about one-fifth of the country, displacing more than one million people, and still occupies significant land on Lebanon's southern border.

The biggest geographical change has been the emergence of the Gulf's waterways and energy infrastructure as a central front. Urban Coningham, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Al Jazeera: 'US-Iran negotiations had previously centred on Iran's regional allies and nuclear programme. The Strait of Hormuz and attacks on the Gulf have now become central points of contention.' Iran continues to threaten and attack shipping there while the US maintains its own blockade of Iranian ports; traffic has been severely disrupted and oil and gas supplies sharply reduced.

In March, CNN reported that the Pentagon and US National Security Council had significantly underestimated Iran's willingness to restrict passage through the strait and the consequences. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected the reporting, insisting the military had planned for that possibility.

Renewed fighting in Yemen between the Saudi-backed internationally recognised government and the Iran-backed Houthis has added another front. Houthi missile and drone attacks targeting Saudi airports and oil infrastructure have expanded Yemen's war to Saudi Arabia, bringing Bab al-Mandeb, the strait linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, into sharper focus as another trade chokepoint.

The two countries' leaders face different constraints. President Trump's approval rating has fallen from 40 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll days before the war began to just 31 percent in a survey released on Monday — the lowest recorded by the pollster across either of Trump's terms — amid frustration over high petrol prices and the war's deep unpopularity. In Iran, the government had faced deep public anger after its January crackdown on protests over inflation and the falling currency; Khamenei's son Mojtaba succeeded him.

Both sides are also paying an economic price. In April, Iran's government estimated direct and indirect damage from US-Israeli attacks at $270bn, and official figures showed Iran's GDP contracted by 10.1 percent year-on-year from March 21 to June 20. In September, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the conflict had cost the Department of Defense $38bn as of August 1, with continued operations expected to cost $2bn to $3bn a month; US government debt surpassed a record $40 trillion in August.

Fox News reported that the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit were expected to reach the Middle East by the end of November, bringing about 10,000 military personnel. Coningham said the difficulty for Washington is 'translating military superiority into strategic results', while the IRGC has demonstrated skill at 'asymmetric warfare', holding off expensive US military might with cheap, mass-produced drones.

The February calculation is therefore not today's calculation: then the questions were the nuclear programme and regional allies, now they are the energy routes of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb, the damage to both economies, and the politics of the midterm elections. Whether renewed strikes come will depend on that changed landscape.