How long a war?
It depends on whether it is waged strictly out of military considerations. If so, the war will take longer than a few weeks.
Non-military considerations — economic (the price of oil), political (a shift in Congress), geostrategic (Russian interference) — can shorten the war.
Militarily, it’s a long haul, the overwhelming force deployed against Iran notwithstanding.
Consider: Gaza has two million people in 141 square miles. Iran has 90 million people in 636,372 square miles. That’s roughly 45 times as many people in Iran as in Gaza and 4,500 times as much land area. Yet, it took Israel almost two years to subdue Hamas in one-half of Gaza, despite the fact that Hamas had none of the advanced weaponry of Iran. To destroy Iran’s sophisticated military assets dispersed across a huge land mass is a huge — and long — job.
News reports tell us daily that a high percentage of Iran’s missiles have been destroyed. Percentages are illusionary. Only few percent of remaining ballistic missiles — not to mention cluster bombs — can spell widespread death and destruction. Victory over Iran’s military assets can only be defined in 100% terms.
True, the fight in Gaza was harder. Gaza was riddled with human shields, not to mention hostages, and these complicated the war against Hamas. As over against this disadvantage, Israel had tens of thousands of “boots the ground” in Gaza. Neither Israel nor the US wants its boots on Iranian ground.
Wars are not typically won by air power alone. This, however, is the preferred strategy of the US and Israel. This means that more air power must be deployed to destroy Iran’s military assets.
This takes time, despite the intelligence superiority of the US and Israel. Now matter how you slice it, it takes a long time to destroy thousands of targets.
The US can lose the will to fight. Israel cannot. Iran’s missiles threaten Israel’s population and ultimately its existence. The critical question concerning the length of the war comes down to this: Can Israel acquire enough anti-anti-missiles systems to withstand Iran? For Israel, the bottom line is not the price of oil. It’s: it’s us or them.
© IJN 2026
