Name: Iran’s Strategy EXPOSED: Why The US Can’t Win This War | Middle East Crisis Explained
Uploaded: 2026-03-28T23:02:57.000Z
Duration: 12 min 24 s
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Plenty to discuss, and joining us on set here is Ross Harrison.

He is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C., an author of "Decoding Iran's Foreign Policy." And joining us from Washington, D.C., Harlan Ullman, a former senior naval officer and chairman of the Kilauan Group.

If I can begin with you, first of all, Ross, I mean, you've authored the book "Decoding Iran's Foreign Policy," wondering if you can try and decode their strategy in the war at this point in time.

and does it seem like it's confounding the United States at this point?

I think what Iran is doing is taking a strategy that they actually developed over the last 30 or 40 years after the Iran-Iraq War, which was fought from 1980 to 1988, which was a strategy of diffusing their power across the region.

And they did that in the failed states of Syria during the Syrian Civil War, in Lebanon with Hezbollah, with the Hashdashabih and PMUs in Iraq, and

And they distributed their power through those states.

And what we're seeing now is they're doing some of that now as well,

but they are also moving this sort of guerrilla strategy, what we call a diffusion strategy of pushing their power out across the region and making themselves a bigger target in a way, a harder target to hit.

They're taking that same strategy and moving it to the state level and pushing conflict into where we are sitting here in Doha, into Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain,

and doing that in order to create a political pressure.

They know they can't compete with the United States in terms of kinetic power or military power directly.

So what they're doing is, rather than dealing directly with us, they're creating pressure on the United States politically by raising the price of oil,

and then the Strait of and then obviously the Hormuz Strait obviously plays into that.

Yeah, and it seems to be working at this point in time.

Harlan, how difficult is it for the US to try and combat that strategy, as Ross was talking about, this diffusion strategy from Iran, distributing their power right across a vast, vast territory?

Iran has learned from history how do you defeat the United States.

You defeat the United States winning by not losing.

The American military won every battle in Vietnam.

In the second Iraq War, the American military won every battle.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban could say, "You have all the watches.

And so what Iran is doing very cleverly, because militarily they are hugely inferior to the United States, is winning by not losing.

As Ross says, turn up the pressure in terms of gasoline prices,

The stock markets are down about 10% from their highs just two weeks ago.

That puts enormous political pressure on Donald Trump at a time when you have a Congress that can't even agree about opening up the government.

So the strategy of winning by not losing is how weaker powers prevail.

And since the Korean War, every war the United States has entered in which the other side has taken the strategy of winning by not losing, we have lost.

I wish Donald Trump had a better sense of history.

Just on that, so it seems like what Harlan's saying there is that Iran's willing to just grind this out and stay on the fight as long as possible.

That sort of goes to the point that we've heard from lots of people saying that there are no good options in front of Donald Trump at this point in time.

It seems like it's getting more and more difficult by the day for him to find an off-ramp.

I think one of the things, just building on what Harlan said, it's winning by not losing and denying the United States the ability to deal with all the contingencies that it has to deal with across the region.

And if they come into the Strait and they use military boots on the ground, it'll become even more difficult.

The other thing I think's important to say, Tom, to the viewers is that what Iran has is a clear sense of a political endgame.

Karl von Clausewitz, the ancient or the strategist from the 17th and 18th century, basically said that war is a continuation of politics by other means.

So what the and what they have, they have a clear sense of the political objective, which is to put pressure on Donald Trump.

The United States also had a political goal, which was regime change.

So now it seems like their military might is detached from any clear political outcome.

And that's a problem for the United States.

It's also racking up quite large financial losses as well.

The United States is facing mounting costs associated with its extensive air and naval assault on Iran.

A recent closed-door Pentagon briefing reportedly revealed that the first six days of the war cost $11.3 billion.

Now, in terms of interceptors, it's cost the US, Israel, and

Gulf countries about $26 billion to shoot down the hundreds of Iranian drones and missiles fired throughout the region over 16 days of the conflict.

Now, the United States has fired more long-range Tomahawk missiles than in any other military campaign in recent history, at least 850 to date, at a cost of $3.6 million.

That's an excess of $3 billion spent just on those munitions.

And then there's the human toll of the war, with at least 13 US service members killed and more than 300 wounded in Iranian strikes to date.

Harlan, if I can come back to you, I mean, those are staggering numbers a month into this war.

We know there's a $200 billion that Congress has been asked to try and find to help Donald Trump continue this war.

You're talking about Iran not losing, the US just going to continue battering them into submission if they can.

How long can they continue trying to do that, at least?

We're running out of bullets, in essence.

And if the Houthis decide to blockade the Red Sea or Abu Hamdab, we're going to be running out of ships.

The fire on the USS Ford may not have been an accident, would suggest that there are some questions with morale.

So the tolls that you look at, we've had a relatively small number of Americans killed and wounded so far, thank goodness.

But the toll on equipment, the toll on our weapons magazines and our personnel cannot be calculated.

And the fact of the matter is, by bringing in the Marine Expeditionary Units and a brigade of the 82nd Airborne, those forces can establish toe holds,

In fact, I've been just watching the movie "A Bridge Too Far" about the failed Arnhem operation, in which we parachuted in three British and American Airborne divisions that failed.

And so you ask the question about what options does Mr.

He can withdraw and try and claim victory, or he can escalate.

And frankly, escalation is just going to make matters worse, because I don't see any way of resolving this war by sheer use of military force.

And as we have discussed, this war is expanding rapidly.

And as I said, Russia will become more deeply engaged.

And don't forget, one of the clever aspects of Mr.

Zelensky, the President of Ukraine's approach, he's going to the Middle East.

He's going to the Gulf States to get all the money he needs because he cannot get it from the United States.

In other words, his plan B is, "I don't think the US is with me for the long term.

Will the Arab states help me?" That's something else that's going to be a further consideration in America's politics.

At the same time, Ross, Pakistan's hosting this what is going to be a crucial summit, no doubt, that begins Sunday, tomorrow.

Diplomats from Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, all, I guess, coming together to try and find a way to de-escalate the situation as it stands.

Do you think they're going to have any success?

Because obviously the US and Iran, there's so little trust between anyone in the conflict at this point in time.

Where do you even begin with something like this?

You know, Tom, it's a great question, because what Iran has done is they've sort of set up a 3D chessboard, right?

They're attacking Israel directly, then they're attacking the Gulf Arab states to put pressure on Donald Trump,

and then they close the Strait of Mendeb.

So they're playing a very complex military or quasi-military game.

And then what has to happen is there has to be a three-dimensional diplomatic game as well.

And I think that's what you're seeing in Islamabad, which is the states that have a stake in the outcome here, right?