On February 28, Donald Trump left little room for misunderstanding. The United States and Israel had just launched the largest and most complex military operation ever carried out against Iran, and the U.S. President personally addressed the Iranians to tell them that “the hour of your freedom has arrived.”

That same day, in a conversation with Axios, he even described a scenario in which the U.S. operation could be completed within two or three days. Six months later, neither of those things has happened. The Islamic Republic exists, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remains the hard core of the regime, and the Middle East faces a reality very different from the one Washington and Tel Aviv believed they could shape last February. The war did not end. It changed form.

“Operation Epic Fury” gave way to “Operation Economic Outcast,” a massive economic strangulation operation announced on August 24 by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The Trump administration is not currently bombing Iran with the intensity of previous months. It is attempting to cut Iran off from the global economic system, deprive Tehran of oil revenues, and force governments and businesses around the world to choose between the American market and Tehran.

The problem for Washington is that this very point looks more like an admission of deadlock than the final act of a war that was won.

The First Strike Was Overwhelming — But the Regime Did Not Fall

From a purely military perspective, what the United States and Israel achieved during the first weeks was far from insignificant. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. Much of the senior military and political leadership was eliminated. The Iranian air force and navy suffered enormous losses, the missile arsenal was repeatedly struck, and facilities connected to the nuclear program were destroyed or severely damaged. Iran’s ability to wage conventional war was significantly reduced. That is where the easy assessment ends.

The operation had not been designed merely to destroy airfields, missiles, and facilities. Its political objective was much greater. Washington expected the shock at the top to cause a rupture within the system. It expected that the elimination of the old leadership and the image of military weakness would bring people into the streets and pave the way for collapse, or at least for such a deep internal crisis that Tehran would be forced to accept American terms. That did not happen.

The succession of Khamenei took place, the system endured, and the military apparatus adapted. Mojtaba Khamenei, seriously wounded in the initial attacks and since then essentially invisible in public, is formally at the top. In practice, however, Iran six months after February 28 is even more a state in which the Revolutionary Guards and security apparatuses have a greater say in critical decisions.

American and Israeli military superiority was demonstrated. The political transformation of that superiority into a different Iran was not. That is also the first major conclusion of the six-month period.

The War Moved to the Strait of Hormuz

There is, however, something Washington underestimated more than anything else: Tehran’s ability to turn geography into a weapon. The Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of the world’s oil trade passed before the war, became the real core of the conflict within a few weeks. Iran did not need to defeat the U.S. fleet. It needed to make passage dangerous enough, expensive enough, and unpredictable enough for the pressure to leave the battlefield and move into the markets. That is exactly what happened.

Washington says it has neutralized a large number of mines and secured the passage of approximately 1,500 commercial vessels. Nevertheless, commercial-traffic figures remain dramatically below normal levels. Reuters reported at the end of August that levels were running at just 5% to 15% of prewar traffic. On Thursday alone, seven commercial vessels passed through the Strait, compared with 17 the previous day.

Iran, therefore, may have lost aircraft, ships, and much of its military infrastructure, but it gained a different lever of pressure. Every ship that does not pass, every insurance premium that rises, and every additional dollar added to fuel prices transfers a small piece of the war from the Persian Gulf to the cash register of a gas station in the United States. And that is precisely where the war began to become a political problem for Trump himself.

The “Peace” of June That Remained on Paper

In mid-June, it appeared for the first time that there was a way out. The Memorandum of Understanding signed by the two sides provided for an end to military operations, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the gradual lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, and a 60-day window for negotiations concerning the nuclear program and a broader agreement. It also provided economic incentives for Iran if the talks resulted in a final settlement. For several weeks, there was at least a piece of paper on the table. Today, not even that exists.

Tehran is calling for a return to the terms of June. Trump has made clear that the agreement in question is over, and Washington now says it is not engaged in direct dialogue with Iran. Qatar, Oman, and Pakistan are once again attempting to find common ground, so far without success. This makes the current phase more dangerous than the absence of bombing might suggest. The two sides have not agreed to peace. They simply are not firing at each other with the intensity they were a few weeks ago.

From “Epic Fury” to Economic “D-Day”

This brought the new American strategy to the forefront. Scott Bessent presented it in military terms. He spoke of an economic “D-Day,” of the complete isolation of Tehran, and of a campaign that would cut “every economic artery” of the regime. The rhetoric is striking. The difficulty lies in implementing it. Iran has already been under thousands of American sanctions for years. For the new operation to be genuinely different, the Trump administration will have to punish not merely Iranian companies and intermediaries, but governments, banks, and business networks of major countries that continue to do business with Tehran. And this is where China and Russia come into play — it could hardly be otherwise. The threat of secondary sanctions is much easier when it concerns a small Gulf company than when it requires a confrontation with Beijing over purchases of Iranian oil. So far, the Trump administration has left unclear how far it is prepared to go against the two countries.

And there is another question, perhaps the most fundamental one. What exactly does the United States want from Iran today? The fall of the Islamic Republic? The surrender of control of Hormuz? The definitive abandonment of the nuclear program? A new negotiation? Or all of these together? Six months after the war began, the answer remains unclear.

Iran Did Not Emerge Unscathed — But Neither Is It Isolated

It would be wrong to describe Iran today as the victor. The country has paid an enormous price. Its military infrastructure has suffered devastating blows. The economy is suffocating, fuel shortages have become visible even in Tehran, and inflation has soared. The regime, however, is not where Washington expected it to be. Instead of the region preparing for a Middle East without the Islamic Republic, several governments are now preparing for the opposite: for an Iran that will remain and with which, sooner or later, a way of coexisting will have to be found. At the same time, Saudi distrust of American security guarantees has grown. The collective-defense agreement signed on August 7 by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan is not officially directed against Iran. It is impossible, however, to separate it from what has happened in the Gulf over the past six months. For the first time, three of the most important military powers in the Muslim world are committing themselves to treating an attack against one as an attack against all three. That alone says a great deal about how much the region’s security architecture has changed.

The War Returned to the United States

There is also a bill that six months ago figured much lower in American calculations. The Pentagon was already estimating in July the direct cost of the war at $37.5 billion. Eighteen American service members have been killed and more than 750 have been wounded. At the same time, prolonged operations have begun to put pressure on ammunition stocks, budgets, and the ability of the U.S. military — particularly the Navy — to maintain the same operational tempo indefinitely. The political cost is equally clear and could prove critical with the midterm elections a month away.

In the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, just 31% of Americans say they support the military operation against Iran. In March, the corresponding figure was 37%. Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 33%, the lowest level recorded by Reuters/Ipsos during his two presidential terms, while 83% of respondents now believe that the war will last for a long time.

Gasoline in the United States has risen above four dollars per gallon, approximately one dollar more than a year ago, and the White House, two months before the midterm elections, is facing a war that strikes precisely where Trump had built a large part of his political identity: on the promise that he would not involve America again in endless Middle East wars and that he would reduce the cost of living at home.

And in the Middle, the Iranians

The number of people killed inside Iran remains difficult to independently verify. There are, however, several thousand, including civilians and children. For Iranians, the war has had two sides from the beginning. On one side were the American and Israeli bombs. On the other was a regime that used the war to tighten its grip on the domestic front even further. As early as late May, Amnesty International was recording more than 6,000 arbitrary arrests following the start of the February 28 attacks — journalists, activists, lawyers, dissidents, and people belonging to minorities. Executions and death sentences in cases connected to the previous anti-government protests have also increased. The “hour of freedom” promised by Trump did not come. For a large part of Iranian society, the bombings, economic collapse, and greater repression arrived together.

Six Months Later

On August 28, the war is in a strange pause. The United States and Iran are not currently exchanging massive fire. The Strait of Hormuz is operating partially. Qatar and Oman are still trying to keep some channels of communication open. Washington, however, has for the time being abandoned military pressure in favor of an economic war with no clear timetable, while Tehran shows no sign that it is ready to surrender the only strong card it has left. The dangerous thing is not that the war is continuing as before. It is that both sides are beginning to get used to the idea that there may be no agreement they can reach with each other.

For Trump, the dilemma is now very different from that of February 28. If economic strangulation does not bend Iran, military escalation will return to the table. If, on the other hand, the pressure genuinely threatens the survival of the regime, Tehran has every reason to respond again at the point where it knows it can hurt its opponents most: in the Persian Gulf and Hormuz. Six months ago, Washington believed it could change Iran. Today, it is trying to find a way to end a war without admitting that its main political objective was not achieved. And that is perhaps the most important distance the war has traveled from February 28 to today.