Name: Are the US and Israel waging a war on Iran's terms? | DW News
Uploaded: 2026-03-18T17:04:03.000Z
Duration: 8 min 10 s
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What if your enemy could beat you without winning a single battle?

Picture a war where $30,000 drones force million dollar intercepts.

Where a handful of naval drones and fast boats can threaten the global oil supply.

And where proxy militia, cyber attacks and disinformation allow a country to strike without necessarily ever showing its own flag.

They're making up for their conventional military disadvantage with acts of asymmetric warfare.

The result is a situation so chaotic and volatile that it's hard to predict and much harder to control.

Does Washington know how to respond to a form of warfare designed to drain it slowly?

Or has Donald Trump stepped into a trap that's far easier to enter than to escape?

It's something that we've seen being developed and refined over many years in Iran, and

it is their primary way of responding to hostilities.

She's a security analyst for the Middle east and Africa with the consulting firm Sibylline.

And to her, none of this is surprising because asymmetric warfare has long been central to Iran's grand strategy.

So Iran's use of asymmetric warfare really has its roots in the fallout from, from the Iran Iraq war in the 1980s.

Essentially, this was a war that emerged almost immediately after the Islamic Republic came into power.

We saw the then leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, launching an invasion of Western parts of Iran.

And Iran responded in a conventional way.

And this led to effectively a war of attrition for over eight years in Iran, this was extremely detrimental.

There were hundreds of thousands of deaths.

The use of chemical weapons and mines were widespread, spread.

And really, this was a very informative conflict for the Islamic Republic.

It taught it that in terms of its conventional capabilities, it would not be able to deter attacks on its territory or be able to respond to them in kind in a way that would rapidly end any conflict.

What we therefore saw was Iran increasingly relying on non conventional and asymmetric methods for responding to hostilities.

Iran has continued to adapt its strategy to developments in the region.

And that is why we're seeing this deployment is something that Iran internally refers to as Mosaic defense, something that is somewhat decentralized, but

aims to attack all aspects of conflict parties in order to undermine their capacity in a way that conventional conflict could not.

The Iranian regime is fighting for its very survival.

So since the start of the war, we've seen them really lean into these tried and tested methods, and

in doing so, they have caused extreme global disruption.

Iran's goal for this war is simply not to lose.

Many analysts have commented that in order to win, the Islamic Republic simply needs to remain in place.

And at the time that we're talking, it is still in place.

And so, in terms of success, if we're measuring it against regime survival, thus far it has been successful.

However, if we look at the aspect of Iran's defence and response to these hostilities, which is essentially attempting to maximize pressure on the Gulf so that the Gulf will then call on the United States to call off the airstrikes, that hasn't been successful.

Rather, we've seen a deterioration of relations between neighbors that Iran used to trade with.

We've seen Qatar's foreign minister yesterday stating that diplomacy will not progress as long as Iranian hostilities targeting the Gulf persist.

And so, whereas Iran possibly hoped that its asymmetric pressure campaign on the Gulf would result in rapid de escalation and the signature of a ceasefire, that approach thus far seems to have been a failure.

Now, it's really no secret that the Iranian are masters at waging asymmetric warfare.

So you might think that Donald Trump could, or rather should have predicted this kind of reaction.

Well, it would appear that Donald Trump did not see Iran's response coming, based on statements that we've seen being made to the press over the past 48 hours.

Trump has repeatedly stated that he was surprised by Iran's response, that he was surprised by the fact that Iran has effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz and has been targeting the Gulf so intensely.

Now, there are reports emerging from the New York Times today that would indicate that several national security briefers did tell Trump that this was a possibility when it came to the conflict.

Miscalculation or misunderstanding, it really doesn't matter because the result is the same.

pretty much the entire world is paying a tremendous price for this war.

So the protraction of the conflict in the Middle east is certainly a concern.

We've seen major price volatility on international energy markets, and

Brent crude for the past two days has traded at above $100 a barrel, which is extremely concerning when we're looking at, say, energy costs.

So that's one way in which Iran's asymmetric warfare is driving up costs for the world.

Another is when we look at the use of interceptors in the Gulf and the use of interceptors in the region.

Now, interceptors like Patriot missiles and THAAD systems are extremely expensive.

If we're looking at certain models, it can cost over A million dollars to produce a battery to fill these types of interceptor systems, whereas shahed drones are estimated to cost between 20 and 30 thousand dollars to produce.

If we're having to use multiple interceptors to take out single shahed drone attacks targeting, say, oil fields or gas fields, as we're routinely seeing in the UAE and in Saudi Arabia, that is an economic cost that is going to continue to grind on the Gulf and that's going to continue to grind on the US Military industrial complex.

And as you can imagine, this creates all sorts of pressure for the U.S.

the Defense Department has vowed that this will not become another forever.

But could Iran's brazen defense strategy drag the US And Israel into a drawn out, complex campaign they have very little control over?

I think there is certainly a bit of a sense of being trapped effectively within Iran.

When we're seeing statements emerging from the White House that Trump is surprised by the way that Iran has responded, that does speak to potentially a sense of being trapped in the Middle east, of being drawn into this conflict for far longer than the Trump administration would have wanted to be.

In the early days of the conflict, we saw Trump stating that the conflict would potentially essentially take about a week.

We then saw estimates increasing to four to five weeks.

And then over the past few days, we've seen Trump repeatedly stating that the conflict will end, quote, soon, but

These kinds of moving timelines are very concerning when it comes to regional stability because there's almost no clarity on when exactly the conflict will end.

Donald Trump's confidence, at least publicly remains undimmed.

He has repeatedly claimed that the war is very complete, pretty much, or already won.

But Megan Sutcliffe says these assessments have very little to do with reality.

And even if we tried to look at, say, U.S.

war goals, that again, does not give us more clarity on when this conflict will end.

Wiping out Iran's military in a country as vast and as mountainous as Iran is simply not something that's going to be demonstrably achieved in the short term.

So I think rather the situation that we're looking at is that the United States is more likely to declare a unilateral victory over Iran as and when it sees fit.

Now, another aspect of this conflict, of course, is a discussion about regime change.

But particularly from the Trump administration, we've seen that being warped back slightly over the past few weeks.

Essentially, our most likely scenario is that the United States declares unilateral victory in Iran, pulls out, and

if the regime does not change, unfortunately attributes blame for that development to the Iranian people themselves.

How success is defined clearly depends on who's measuring it.

In the first weeks of this war, one thing has become obvious.

Iran is giving the US And Israel a run for their money.

How it all plays out, that's, of course, something we'll be covering here at DW News.

I'm Nicole Froehlich, and until next time,