US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth painted a picture on Saturday of an Iranian military in disarray, with leaders “desperate and hiding” underground, a wounded supreme leader possibly disfigured, and a regime running short of options. Analysts who study Iran closely offered a sharply different assessment. Despite weeks of devastating US and Israeli bombing, the International Crisis Group’s Ali Vaez said Iran’s regime appeared “pretty intact” and was executing a deliberate strategy with three clear components: survive the bombing, maintain enough military capacity to keep fighting, and drag the conflict out until better negotiating terms could be achieved.
The evidence on Saturday seemed to support the analysts rather than the defence secretary. Iran launched ballistic missiles at the UAE, struck Fujairah’s major oil port, threatened any Gulf energy facility with American ties, fired rockets at Israel, maintained the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and coordinated attacks on the US embassy in Baghdad — all in a single day. This was not the behaviour of a military in collapse. It was the behaviour of one executing a coherent, multi-front strategy with significant remaining capacity.
US warplanes struck Kharg Island on Saturday for the second consecutive day. President Trump said in public remarks the island had been effectively demolished and called on China, France, Japan, South Korea, and the UK to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz. His appeal was the first public suggestion that the US might need international help to reopen the waterway, which Iran had closed since the war began on February 28. Energy prices were approaching $120 per barrel, and analysts warned of a surge to $150 if the conflict continued.
Israeli warplanes conducted dozens of raids inside Iran, killing at least 15 people in Isfahan. Iran fired rockets at Israel in return. The USS Tripoli and 2,500 additional US marines were heading to the region. Trump said he was not ready to negotiate, calling the terms unacceptable. Iran’s foreign minister called on Arab states to expel US forces. The competing narratives between US officials and independent analysts suggested that a clear-eyed assessment of Iran’s remaining strength was essential to any realistic plan for ending the conflict.
The war’s human toll was vast. More than 1,400 Iranians had been killed in the bombing. Thirteen Israelis and roughly 20 Gulf residents had died. Lebanon’s crisis continued, with 800 killed and 850,000 displaced from Israeli strikes on Hezbollah. Six US troops died in an aircraft crash in Iraq. The US embassy in Baghdad was struck, and Americans in Iraq were ordered to leave. If Hegseth’s assessment was wrong and Iran remained capable of sustained operations, the conflict’s end was not nearly as close as American officials were suggesting.