The Guardian view on the expanding Iran crisis: no clear aim and no end in sight | Editorial

There will be no quick or easy wins – even on US and Israeli terms. They have celebrated assassinating Iran’s supreme leader; their offensive has also killed more than 1,000 civilians so far, including scores of children, according to a US-based rights group. As Iran retaliates, hoping America’s allies will try to rein it back, it is targeting US bases and civilian sites across the region – even in Oman, which was at the forefront of efforts to stave off the war. Gulf powers are increasingly irate, though wary of acting on threats to go beyond defensive action. Israel has ordered hundreds of thousands of civilians to leave a vast swathe of southern Lebanon, blaming Hezbollah’s retaliation for the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Those who warned that the US-Israeli attack on Iran would lead to war engulfing the Middle East have proved, if anything, conservative in their predictions. A Hezbollah-launched drone hit an RAF airbase in Cyprus at the weekend. On Wednesday, Azerbaijan reported strikes on an airbase (though Iran denied responsibility, as it did over a missile fired towards Turkey). The day before, the US sank an Iranian warship 2,000 miles away, in waters close to Sri Lanka, as it returned from multilateral exercises with India – killing at least 87 people. And governments around the world face soaring energy prices and rattled markets thanks to Iran’s chokehold on the strait of Hormuz.

Far from seeking to de-escalate, Israel and the US talk of weeks’ more conflict and the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, promises “death and destruction from the sky all day long”. Israel believes it has a unique opportunity to destroy an adversary and sees only advantages in persisting until Iran falls into chaos. The US reportedly seeks to support Kurdish fighters to cross the border from Iraq – exacerbating the risk of a chaotic civil war, and of wider fragmentation. The rationales offered by the US for this conflict have shifted as fast as its boundaries have expanded: they include regime change, preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, destroying its ballistic missile capability, or preventing Tehran from retaliating against the US for an Israeli attack.

Though Donald Trump avoided presenting his plans to Congress, it shows no signs of restraining him. But six American soldiers have already been killed; the military is running through its expensive stock of interceptors; his anti-interventionist Maga base is unhappy; American (and Trump family) investments in the region are at risk; and energy prices are surging, ahead of November’s midterms. The Iranian regime will put little confidence in talks with a foe that has struck it during negotiations twice in a year. It will regard its mere survival as a victory. But with no clear criteria for a US win, the president might arbitrarily declare one, even without a deal. Others would bear most of the consequences for now, and he does not concern himself with what may happen a few years down the road.

The kidnapping of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro convinced Mr Trump that he could claim flashy victories at little cost. He appears to have hoped that this would be another quick win; it is already proving more costly. Yet no one should count on this conflict curbing his newfound appetite for reckless and illegal military adventurism. Others must continue to defend the standards of international law.

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