2026 Iran War
Based on Wikipedia: 2026 Iran war
On February 28, 2026, the world watched in horror as a surprise attack unfolded across Iran. The United States and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes on multiple sites and cities, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—the most senior Shiite religious leader in the world—and numerous other Iranian officials. In the midst of ongoing nuclear negotiations, the attacks struck not just military installations but also schools, hospitals, and cultural heritage sites. Iran responded with hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles aimed at targets in Israel, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. A drone struck Britain's Akrotiri military base on Cyprus. The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel escalated into the 2026 Lebanon war.
The seeds of this catastrophe were planted decades earlier. In 1953, a US and UK-backed coup d'état deposed democratically elected Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh after he nationalized the oil industry. The Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, assumed power—and with him came Western interference in Iranian affairs. Resentment of the Shah's autocratic rule and deference to Western interests led to the 1979 revolution, which overthrew him and transformed Iran into an Islamic republic.
The new regime viewed both the United States and Israel as meddlers in the region. Seeing Israel as an occupier of Palestinian land, Tehran severed diplomatic ties with both nations and held American embassy staff hostage for over a year. Iran periodically called for the destruction of Israel.
During the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s, the US provided economic, intelligence, and indirect military support to Iraq. Toward the war's end in 1988, a US warship was struck by an Iranian mine—prompting the US to attack Iran's navy. A few months later, the US mistakenly shot down a civilian Iranian flight. Throughout this period, Iran began engaging in proxy conflicts, backing Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In 2002, Iran's nuclear program was revealed, met with economic sanctions and a US–Israel cyberattack. In the 2000s, Iran supported militias fighting the US in Iraq—a loose network that became an informal Axis of Resistance committed to countering US and Israeli influence in the Middle East.
The conflict between the US and Iran became direct in January 2020 when President Trump ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force. Tensions further escalated following the October 7 attacks on Israel and the start of the Gaza war in 2023, during which Israel weakened Iranian-backed militias across the Middle East—including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah, and others.
Israeli strikes on Iran's consulate in Damascus and the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran were met with retaliatory strikes on Israel in April and October. Israel waged the Twelve-Day War on Iran in June 2025, including an American airstrike aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran's AMAD Project was suspended pursuant to Ali Khamenei's fatwa against nuclear weapons in 2003—his religious ruling banning development of nuclear weapons of any kind.
Iran has said it is not seeking nuclear weapons, and that its enrichment efforts are for civilian nuclear power. Some UK and US analysts concluded Iran is pursuing a strategy of nuclear hedging. UN Security Council concerns about Iran's nuclear program from 2006 were solved by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. The US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions, shifting toward force rather than diplomacy.
The first Trump administration adopted a "maximum pressure" strategy. The Biden administration did not relax economic sanctions, implementing more measures instead. The second Trump administration reimposed maximum pressure on Iran. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent labelled the collapse of the Iranian currency in December 2025 as the "grand culmination" of this strategy.
The Defense Intelligence Agency concluded in 2025 it would be a decade before Iran would gain the technical skill to produce missiles capable of reaching the United States. The US Department of Defense estimated Iran's nuclear program had been set back by two years by its June 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
In January 2026, US and European officials said Washington presented Iran with three core demands—including a permanent end to all uranium enrichment. At the State of the Union in late February 2026, President Trump stated Iran had restarted its nuclear program and was developing missiles capable of striking the US. Days later, the International Atomic Energy Agency discovered Iran had hidden highly enriched uranium in an underground facility undamaged in previous fighting.
The IAEA said it had no evidence that Iran has an organized nuclear weapons program or is building an atomic bomb, but could not be sure about Iran's broader nuclear program.
In January 2026, Iranian security forces killed thousands of protesters during the largest protests since the Islamic Revolution. US president Donald Trump threatened to take military action against Iran for the killings. The US undertook its largest military buildup in the Middle East since the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, while Iran and the US held indirect nuclear negotiations in February.
The surprise US-Israeli attack killed Khamenei and other Iranian officials—and some civilians—in the midst of nuclear negotiations. Subsequent attacks damaged military bases, government facilities, schools, hospitals, and cultural heritage sites. In retaliation, Iran launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at targets in Israel and at US military bases across Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran allegedly targeted civilian infrastructure in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and Oman. A drone struck Britain's Akrotiri military base on Cyprus. Conflict between Hezbollah and Israel escalated into the 2026 Lebanon war.
Trump administration officials have offered various—conflicting—explanations for the war: to ward off an imminent Iranian threat, to pre-empt Iranian retaliation against US assets after an expected Israeli attack, to destroy Iran's missile and military capabilities, to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, to secure natural resources, and to achieve regime change by bringing Iranian opposition to power.
Iran, as well as officials from the Pentagon, rejected claims that Iran had been preparing an attack. The International Atomic Energy Agency said it did not have the access needed to ensure Iran's nuclear program was exclusively peaceful—but there was no evidence of a structured nuclear weapons program at the time of the strikes.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and several uninvolved countries condemned the US–Israeli strikes. The UN Security Council later passed a resolution condemning Iran's retaliatory strikes on Gulf states. Critics—including legal and international relations experts—have described the attacks as illegal under US law, an act of imperialism, and a violation of Iran's sovereignty under international law.
The conflict led to immediate surges in oil and gas prices. Widespread disruptions in aviation and tourism followed. Heightened volatility gripped financial markets. Iran forced closure of the Strait of Hormuz—seen by some as a violation of the law of the sea—and attacked energy facilities, disrupting global oil and gas shipments, in retaliation for similar strikes on Iranian facilities.