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The war with Iran is increasingly shaping up as a test of which side can endure longer, with U.S. and Israeli strikes continuing to hit Iranian positions even as Iran sustains a steady stream of missile and drone attacks across the region, an Associated Press analysis said. The conflict’s global spillover—particularly through energy pricing, travel, and shipping—has added another layer to the endurance calculation, widening the pressure beyond battlefields.
The analysis said a jump in oil prices has highlighted what it described as Iran’s most effective lever and the United States’ vulnerability in trying to maintain the campaign: damaging the world economy. It cited a spike in oil to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday—described as the highest since 2022—followed by a pullback to around $90 after Trump suggested the war would be “short-term.” In the same breath, the analysis said Trump also vowed to keep up the war and “the punishment on Iran.”
On the other side, Iran has been absorbing an “near-constant stream” of American and Israeli airstrikes, the analysis said, with leadership shifting early in the conflict from the slain ayatollah to his son. The analysis described Iran as still in control of its political structure, even as its military has been hit extensively and continues to launch missiles and drones across the region.
The pressure also appears aimed at public stability and regional partners. The analysis said the Iranian public—after nationwide protests in January against the theocracy—has “boiled in anger but have stayed home as they try to survive the heavy bombardment,” while security forces have been on the street daily to ensure anti-government demonstrations do not form. It said the pressure extends to U.S. allies as well: Gulf Arab states, though not combatants, face Iranian fire targeting oil fields, cities and critical water works, sometimes fatally.
Israel and Iran have also continued to trade strikes that disrupt civilian routines. The analysis said Israel, while describing heavy damage to Iran’s missile program and other military targets, has been targeted by sophisticated Iranian missiles that send high-explosive payloads across cities, with frequent air-raid sirens closing schools and workplaces and disrupting daily life.
The analysis said there were “no off-ramps” visible in either side’s rhetoric. It described bad blood stretching back decades to the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis, and said there is no immediate end to the war in sight for either America or Iran. Trump, in remarks in Doral, Florida, said, “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” adding, “We go forward, more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long running danger once and for all.” Kazem Gharibabadi, a foreign ministry official in Tehran, offered a mirrored message on Iranian state television late Monday night, saying, “At the moment, we hold the upper hand,” and pointing to “the state of the global economy and energy markets” as “very painful for them.” Gharibabadi also said Iran would “determine the end of the war.”
In the analysis, Iran’s campaign strategy centers on “havoc” meant to exploit regional energy dependence while it endures sanctions at home. It said Iran had warned before the war began Feb. 28 that if attacked it would retaliate across the Middle East, targeting the oil infrastructure that had enriched Gulf Arab neighbors, and said it has now backed up that threat with barrages of missiles and drones. The analysis said Qatar halted natural gas production, Bahrain said its oil operations could not meet contractual obligations, and other producers such as Saudi Aramco faced disruptions that affect energy flows—particularly to Asia, where the analysis said China sent a top envoy to the region.
The analysis also described broad disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, saying it did not need to mine the waterway because attacks on ships prompted companies to stop sending vessels through the strait. It cited the strait’s role in global commerce—20% of oil and natural gas traded, and up to 30% of world fertilizer exports—and said Trump has suggested U.S. warships provide escorts to tankers, though the analysis said that did not yet restart traffic. Early Tuesday, it said Trump warned that if Iran stops the oil through the strait, “they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” and he also wrote that the U.S. would take out targets that make it “virtually impossible” for Iran to be rebuilt as a nation.
Iran’s response in the analysis was to double down. It said the Revolutionary Guard warned it would not allow “a single liter of oil” to leave the Persian Gulf, a posture that the analysis framed as sustaining the conflict’s pressure rather than offering an exit.
The analysis then turned to the question of what “victory” could mean for each side as the war grinds on. It said for Iran’s theocratic rulers, victory means surviving while staying in power, regardless of the costs to the country and the region. For the United States, it said Trump has offered vague and contradictory aims—at times suggesting an effort to overthrow the theocracy, while at other times describing goals as ensuring Iran is no longer a threat to Israel, the region and the U.S.—a flexibility that could let him declare victory if real damage shows in U.S. economic conditions. The analysis warned, however, that if fighting ended immediately, both the U.S. and Israel would still face challenges tied to Iran’s leadership, its nuclear program and the balance of threat perceptions.
Among those challenges, the analysis said Iran’s leadership has changed during the war. It described an Israeli airstrike that killed 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the start of the conflict, followed by clerics naming his 56-year-old son Mojtaba to the role and elevating him to the rank of an ayatollah. It said analysts have long viewed Mojtaba as even more hard-line than his father, with close ties to the Revolutionary Guard, and said Israel had already described him as a target in its campaign while Trump has said he wanted someone else in the role.
The analysis also cited nuclear risk. It said Iran still has a stockpile of highly enriched uranium, described as one driver of the war that Israel and the U.S. have pointed to. It said Iran had been enriching up to 60% purity, a technical step short of weapons-grade 90%, and that the U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear sites in June during the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, likely burying much of the stockpile in debris. It added that those sites remain out of the reach of international inspectors. The analysis said Mojtaba Khamenei could issue a religious ruling, or fatwa, reversing statements by his father and ordering its use to make a weapon—an outcome both the U.S. and Israel “long believed” they do not want to see.