Kurdish Policy Analysis

  Economy-related dimensions The economic fallout of the Israeli-US war on Iran, now entering its third week, is becoming clearer. Seasoned Washington-based reporter Laura Rozen  noted  on Mar. 15, “[US President Donald] Trump [is] putting his economic advisors, energy and interior secretaries on the Sunday shows, rather than his national security advisor, secretary of state, intelligence officials, or military leaders. What does that tell you?” Iran has intensified warnings aimed at Gulf Arab states. Tehran has urged residents near major Emirati ports to evacuate their homes, claiming that US forces are using such facilities to support strikes against Iran and thus signaling that they could become future targets of Iran. A similar warning was reportedly issued for several districts in Doha on Mar. 15. According to Bloomberg  estimates , if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to most commercial traffic for around two months, Qatar and Kuwait could see GDP contraction...

While US has made Operational Progress yet challenges remain  Tehran’s strategy is built not on defeating its enemies but on simply surviving a prolonged war of attrition. The notion that such a vast and geographically complex country could be invaded and its regime toppled through external military intervention is, in practical terms, a pipe dream. - The war in Iran is currently in a phase in which the military trajectory is relatively positive: the United States is steadily destroying Iran’s ability to use its most essential tool in the war  — drone and missile attacks — which in turn underpin the entire Iranian strategy. Iran has still done some damage to US forces, and it is still firing drones and missiles, though the overall attack rate is slowly decreasing. These attacks still pale in comparison to the major attacks Iran sought to conduct in an existential war and have caused neither operationally significant damage nor widespread casualties. - The US-Israeli combined ...