핵심요약

• 3년 전쟁 기간 동안 이란의 대리인 네트워크 90% 이상 파괴
• 시리아 대통령 바샤르 알 아사드, 이란의 핵심 파트너에서 이탈
• 이란의 전통적인 군대와 방어, 핵 산업 기반 대부분 파괴
• 호르무즈 해협 폐쇄로 인한 경제적 피해, 글로벌 공급망 재편 가속화

도입

이란-미국 간의 3년 전쟁은 중동 지역의 전략적 지도를 완전히 바꾸었습니다. 이 전쟁의 결과는 이란의 약화와 미국의 전략적 우위 확보라는 두 가지 핵심 요소를 가지고 있습니다. 투자자들에게 이란의 지위 하락과 미국이 중동 지역에서 더욱 강해지는 것은 중요한 투자 결정에 영향을 미칠 수 있는 요소입니다.

본문 1: 이란의 전략적 약화와 그 영향

이란의 대리인 네트워크가 90% 이상 파괴되었다는 것은 이란의 전략적 영향력이 크게 약화되었음을 의미합니다. 이는 중동 지역에서 이란의 군사적 개입 능력을 제한하며, 미국과 그 동맹국들의 안보를 강화하는 결과를 가져왔습니다. 또한, 시리아 대통령 바샤르 알 아사드가 이란의 핵심 파트너에서 이탈한 것은 이란의 지역적 영향력을 더욱 약화시키는 요인이 됩니다. 이란의 전통적인 군대와 방어, 핵 산업 기반의 파괴는 이란의 군사적 능력을 크게 저하시켰으며, 이는 향후 중동 지역에서 미국의 군사적 우위를 확보하는 데 기여할 것입니다.

본문 2: 호르무즈 해협 폐쇄의 경제적 영향과 글로벌 공급망 재편

호르무즈 해협의 폐쇄는 이란에게 경제적 피해를 입혔지만, 동시에 글로벌 공급망에 대한 영향을 미쳤습니다. 이란의 경제적 피해는 장기적으로 이란의 경제 안정성을 위협할 수 있으며, 이는 이란의 정치적 불안정을 초래할 가능성도 있습니다. 반면, 글로벌 공급망의 재편은 새로운 무역 루트와 에너지 공급망의 다양화를 촉진할 수 있습니다. 이는 글로벌 경제에 긍정적인 영향을 미칠 수 있는 요소이지만, 동시에 새로운 리스크도 동반할 수 있습니다. 예를 들어, 새로운 무역 루트의 개발과 에너지 공급망의 다양화는 초기 투자 비용이 높아질 수 있으며, 이는 글로벌 경제의 안정성에 영향을 미칠 수 있습니다.

결론

3년 전쟁의 결과는 이란의 전략적 약화와 미국의 우위 확보라는 두 가지 핵심 요소를 가지고 있습니다. 이는 중동 지역에서 미국의 안보와 경제적 이익을 강화하는 결과를 가져왔습니다. 향후 미국과 이란 간의 직접 대화가 진행되면서, 중동 지역의 안정화가 더욱 진행될 가능성이 높습니다. 그러나, 새로운 무역 루트와 에너지 공급망의 재편은 글로벌 경제에 새로운 리스크를 동반할 수 있으므로, 이를 주의 깊게 모니터링하는 것이 중요합니다.

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Iran Didn’t Win the War - Foreign Affairs

Much of Washington has greeted the Iran cease-fire deal with scorn. After more than three months of war, the United States and Israel failed to achieve many of their objectives, which included overthrowing the regime in Tehran and ending a potential Iranian nuclear threat.

But when viewed from a broader perspective, the outcome looks different. The almost three-year-long regional conflict that started with Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023 and culminated in Operation Epic Fury this spring has put the United States and its partners in a far stronger position in the Middle East and left Iran much weaker. Iran’s proxy network of militant groups is largely in ruins; Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, one of Iran’s key partners, is gone; Tehran has been mostly ignored by its supposed allies in Beijing and Moscow; and Iran’s conventional forces, and much of its defense and nuclear industrial base, have been decimated. Iran’s sole victory from the latest round of conflict has come from its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz and cause economic damage across the world. But closing the strait also harms Iran itself, and the impact of a closure is likely to weaken over time as countries seek alternative suppliers, substitutes for oil, and new shipping routes to avoid the strait.

This is not to say that the war was perfectly executed or that it has gone according to plan. But the cumulative effect of three years’ worth of efforts to defang a dangerous and threatening regime in Iran has left the United States in a strong position to solidify its gains. The memorandum of understanding to end the war opens the door to direct U.S.-Iranian talks, which could further stabilize the region. The memorandum’s limits on Iran’s nuclear program are vague for now, but the United States’ ability to wield economic sanctions and credibly threaten more bombing gives it the leverage to achieve permanent limits on Iranian enrichment. Rather than a foreign policy failure, the war could be the final piece of a successful effort to contain Tehran’s regional threats and achieve a long-term cease-fire.

The military campaign that the United States and Israel launched on February 28 cannot be viewed in isolation. In its legal justification for the operation, released on April 21, the Department of State explained: “Epic Fury is only the latest round of an ongoing international armed conflict with Iran.” That conflict began with the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, and continued across the region in both the Biden and Trump administrations. It included Israeli ground combat in Gaza and Lebanon; the toppling of Assad; U.S. and European navies fighting air and sea battles with the Houthis in and around the Red Sea; and Iranian air and missile strikes against Israel, the United States, and Gulf Arab partners.

Viewed as a campaign in an ongoing conflict, the most recent round of fighting with Iran was all but inevitable. After the United States and Israel had bombed Fordow and other nuclear sites during the 12-day war in June 2025, the Trump administration called off additional Israeli airstrikes, signaling that Washington sought a comprehensive settlement with Tehran to end the cycle of violence and limit its nuclear program. The administration then held another round of nuclear talks with Iran in February to get Tehran to limit enrichment and to probe if, in doing so, Iran would also moderate its aggressive approach to the region. Although Iran made some concessions—according to leaked reports, Iran agreed to temporarily halt enrichment—American negotiators concluded that Iran was unwilling to abandon its larger nuclear ambitions and thus its quest for regional hegemony.

Iran’s actions after the 12-day war reinforced the perception that it was insistent on maintaining its regional dominance. Tehran rapidly deployed new long-range ballistic missiles, which the Israelis understood as providing a shield for Iran’s nuclear program. In January, the Iranian regime brutally suppressed a nationwide popular uprising. The Islamic regime thus showed it was not changing, which meant that the United States and Israel were dealing with the same foe that had started the war in 2023 via its proxies and which would inevitably incite more conflict.

The only question for Washington was whether it made more sense to strike sooner or later. The Trump administration and Israel decided that it was better to attack while Iran was still relatively weak from the 12-day war and the popular uprising than to wait until it had regained control and rebuilt missile stocks. The problem with the decision to attack on February 28 was not the timing. The problem was with the overly ambitious belief that the administration could achieve a total victory similar to what it had done in Venezuela and with its lack of preparation for obvious countermoves. The administration ignored decades of U.S. military planning for a potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and it disregarded experience of the difficulty of overthrowing ideological foes such as Hezbollah, the Islamic State, and the Taliban.

But even with legitimate qualms about the goals and preparation for the war, the United States and Israel have inflicted significant damage to Iran since February 28. Tehran’s proxy network, weakened in the past three years, has now totally collapsed. The remnants of Hamas maintained the cease-fire in Gaza, and in contrast to 2023–24, when Iraqi militias and the Houthis in Yemen launched hundreds of strikes at U.S. military assets and trading vessels on the Red Sea, Iran’s proxy networks largely stayed on the sidelines of the latest round of conflict. Baghdad rejected the most pro-Iranian candidates for prime minister following its November 2025 election, and Iraqi pro-Iranian militias took some at least superficial steps to integrate themselves into the formal Iraqi government. Israel decisively defeated the one proxy that entered the conflict, Hezbollah, and for the first time in more than 40 years Lebanon entered negotiations directly with Israel on disarming Hezbollah. Israel now holds territory in Lebanon all the way to the Litani River, about 15–20 miles north of Israel’s border, and nothing in the memorandum of understanding requires it to abandon its gains.

The war also destroyed much of Iran’s remaining military capabilities, particularly its air defense network. According to the Pentagon, since February 28, the United States has hit more than 1,500 Iranian air defense targets and 1,250 drone and ballistic missile storage facilities. Iran estimates that the war has caused $270 billion in damage. The United States, Israel, and Gulf Arab partners intercepted the vast majority of Iran’s missile and drone counteroffensives; those that got through defenses did little damage to Israeli targets and only moderate damage to U.S. bases in the region and Gulf states’ infrastructure.

Iran’s successful closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the resulting oil shortages were painful for individual countries and consumers, but the effects of this cutoff were less devastating than those of the 1973–74 oil embargo, which triggered a global recession and sent oil prices skyrocketing more than 300 percent. (In contrast, oil prices rose only about 50 percent since the war started.) When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz this year, states and companies quickly found workarounds to offset some of the impact. American oil fields increased production and exports, reaching a record high level of crude oil exports of 5.6 million barrels per day in May. Saudi Arabia is transporting up to seven million barrels of oil per day, or one-third of the Gulf’s exports, via a pipeline that bypasses the strait, and the UAE is nearly halfway finished with a new pipeline that will double its own overland transport capacity to more than three million barrels per day. Iran’s oil embargo is also promoting a global energy shift from Gulf hydrocarbons to other oil and gas suppliers and to alternative energy sources, which makes the blockade a wasting asset. Iran was able to weather the United States’ own belated blockade of the Strait of Hormuz because it already had many tens of millions of barrels of oil out at sea, but Tehran’s limited geographic options and financial assets to export oil in other ways make it vulnerable to future blockades.

The real test of how badly the campaign damaged Iran is what happens to its nuclear program. Under the memorandum of understanding, Iran committed only to discussing its nuclear program, not to taking specific proactive steps other than diluting its stockpiles of 60 percent enriched uranium, which is dangerously close to the 90 percent enrichment levels needed for nuclear weapons, and which are currently largely buried underground. The memorandum links discussion of enrichment to sanctions relief, suggesting that negotiators have informally established a linkage between the two, and the U.S.-Iranian nuclear talks held in February made some progress on enrichment limits, according to leaked reports. But to truly curb Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions, the United States must ensure that those stockpiles are actually eliminated, and that Iran cannot pursue future enrichment.

Many observers criticize the war by arguing that the United States finds itself no better off than it was when it signed the 2015 nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, with Iran. They argue that the United States could have maintained controls on Iran’s nuclear program by remaining in the JCPOA, which U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from during his first term. But the JCPOA only temporarily limited Iran’s nuclear program while ending sanctions and other enforcement mechanisms. The restrictions on Iranian enrichment under that agreement, had it remained in place, would have been removed step by step beginning this year; within a few years, the agreement would have permitted Iran to very rapidly enrich uranium unrestricted, making it easier for Iran to produce nuclear weapons.

The United States now finds itself in a better bargaining position than it would have been in if it had stayed in the JCPOA. The biting economic sanctions that Trump imposed when he backed out of the JCPOA in 2018 and the joint U.S.-Israeli destruction of much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in the 12-day war provide the United States with leverage in current negotiations. Washington can now offer Tehran a cease-fire and sanctions relief in return for Iranian limits on enrichment.

Critics of the war also cite the fact that the United States clashed with Israel, Gulf Arab states, and Europe over war decisions. Gulf countries blocked some U.S. air operations from using bases on their territory and declined to participate in U.S. efforts to escort ships through the strait. The Trump administration criticized Israel repeatedly for its Lebanon operation against Hezbollah, which it saw as undermining the call for a Lebanon cease-fire in the memorandum. And Washington fought with European states over the lack of consultation over the U.S. decision to attack Iran and European refusal to help unblock the strait.

But U.S. allies and partners are likely to work through those disagreements with Washington, rather than shift to dramatically different security arrangements, because they have few other options. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is internationally isolated and has no other powerful global patron. Gulf states are hedging their reliance on the United States by pursuing military cooperation with countries such as Turkey and Pakistan, but they have no other serious military partner besides the United States to face the residual Iranian threat. Gulf states still need the United States for now, but as Dana Stroul wrote in Foreign Affairs , the Trump administration “must make systemic changes to how Washington works with regional partners” if it wants to keep them on its side in the future.

The relatively harmonious G-7 Summit that took place from June 15 to June 17 reinforced the image of cooperation among the U.S. and its partners. Trump met with key Arab leaders to coordinate on Iran, signed on to tough language on a communiqué reaffirming support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, and was feted at Versailles by French President Emmanuel Macron. U.S. allies know that they still need to work with Washington and are willing to let bygones be bygones with the war in Iran.

The decision to attack Iran was imperfect: like many overly ambitious, underresourced, and under-analyzed foreign policy gambits in U.S. history, such as President Harry S. Truman greenlighting General George MacArthur’s march to the Yalu River in the Korean War and George W. Bush’s fateful decision to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, Operation Epic Fury failed as a total victory. But over the past three years, the United States has accumulated a series of gains that have largely reversed Iran’s regional successes over the prior 20 years. Assuming that the administration manages to keep the strait open and limit Iran’s long-term nuclear enrichment, a U.S. policy aimed at containment, not regime overthrow, will have been a win. The task now is not to achieve an unattainable final victory, but to consolidate these gains and ensure that Iran remains weaker than when conflict first broke out in 2023.

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Source: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiZEFVX3lxTE9PNW1oWUNhTVcyRUtpU2ZGQ3daV2RqSE1PZjh6YXM5OWNwWVRvRkY1WGFKenpYWWpER2Uybk1SMk1rSE42czFpU1Jha1loV091LXdTVlpsTWVXYlNsaDFWUmpXMkY?oc=5