FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The world has become more dangerous and more expensive...
Everyone is declaring victory, but no one is a winner after a war that cost trillions of dollars and took thousands of lives.
Iran
Iran says it won. It certainly gained great influence and power because of its new control over a fifth of the world's oil supply in the Strait of Hormuz.
And if your enemies start a war to change your regime, among other things, then victory is survival. But Iran also lost a lot.
As America's very inflated Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, likes to boast, most of its navy has been sunk and its air force blown up, along with most of its missile arsenal.
Iran's economy is now in an even more difficult state, increasing the risk of a return to popular unrest if sanctions cannot be lifted in future talks.
And the power that Iran can wield in war will only fade over time. Billions will be spent bypassing the Strait of Hormuz with pipelines and ports so that we never hear about its notorious importance again.
Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, promised a “historic victory” and “security for generations.” Not at all.
His war has failed to topple the Ayatollahs, end their nuclear ambitions, and reclaim their highly enriched uranium. Iran's missile arsenal is greatly reduced, but still powerful and significantly more accurate than previously thought.
And rightly or wrongly, Israel is being blamed for America's leadership in this war, losing sympathy throughout the region and political support in the U.S. For a small country in a difficult neighborhood that depends on foreign aid, this is a very important thing.
Lebanon
Israel is also now busy with another invasion of southern Lebanon. It is hard to think of a better way to boost recruitment for its sworn enemy, Hezbollah, a tragedy for the rest of Lebanon that hoped the days of the resistance movement were now numbered.
Gulf countries
The Gulf countries never wanted this war to happen and have seen their business models destroyed by it.
The image they have spent billions and decades cultivating as safe havens for leisure and investment has suffered a monumental blow.
US
What about America? Donald Trump's claim of "total victory" does not stand up to a moment's scrutiny. He threw the world's most advanced military at Iran for weeks, and his enemies have ended up strategically more powerful, still in possession of thousands of missiles and tens of thousands of drones, and capable of building more.
Trump's claims that his regime has changed are nonsense. Ideologically it is the same as before, but it is now more battle-hardened. And its nuclear program remains viable in theory, with highly enriched uranium still available.
The war has exposed the limitations of American military power in a way that makes the world less safe for all of us. America's enemies will have seen and learned, ready to apply the lessons of this war to their own futures. China, above all.
The war that Trump called his "excursion" into the Middle East could define the pinnacle of US power in the world, just as the Suez crisis did for Britain.
The wider world
And for the rest of us who have depended on Pax Americana for decades to keep us safer and more prosperous, this is bad news. The world has become more dangerous and more expensive.
Nuclear proliferation will increase as countries scramble to secure the bomb, to avoid the same fate as Iran. And economists warn that much of the damage caused by this conflict will take months, if not years, to repair.
We will all feel the impact of this in higher interest rates and inflation. One group of people benefited. Tremendously. A group of people quite confident in their knowledge of the president’s plans to profit through insider trading just before he made each of his next moves. While we all became poorer, some of those close to the president, it seems, enjoyed quite the opposite./ SkyNews
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