The War on Iran: A Double-Sided Coin

By Nina Lewandowska

In a world ridden with geopolitical tensions, the rapidly escalating conflict between the United States and Iran has once again thrust the Middle East into the centre of our attention. Behind all the headlines of missile strikes and political standoffs lie deeply rooted cultures, histories, and contrasting narratives, all of which create a veil of uncertainty. This does not only obscure the immediate consequences of the conflict but also the complex and often contrasting causes behind it. We are faced with questions of who is right or wrong, and whether this war is a battle for national security and sovereignty, or rather a fight for dominance and ideological influence. The answer is anything but simple. With tensions rising, the world watches anxiously, hoping that the next move does not push the region to its breaking point.

The Start of the Conflict

Conflict reignited across the Middle East on 28 February 2026 after the US and Israel launched missile strikes on Iran, killing the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As a response to these attacks, Iran launched assaults on Israel and US-allied states in the Gulf. 

Israel and the US have been each other’s closest allies as well as joint enemies of Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Iranian leaders have consistently called for the elimination of Israel and declared the US to be Iran’s greatest enemy. These extremely strained geopolitical relations have, without a doubt, fuelled the conflict of 2026. The actual cause of the war, though, is hard to pinpoint. The Trump administration has provided the public with a plethora of reasons, many of which are vague or contradictory. This has resulted in confusion surrounding its initial objectives and the true origins of the war. 

The US and Israel have openly opposed Iran’s nuclear programme, claiming that the country is looking to develop a nuclear bomb. These accusations, however, have been consistently renounced by the Iranian government. Since then, the two allied nations have attacked Iranian nuclear and military sites in the Twelve-Day War of June 2025. The US and Israel have been open about their discussions about potential attacks on Iran, notably after Iranian security forces attacked protesters in January. The two states seemed to be making progress on negotiations with Iran until 27 February, when President Trump stated he was “not happy” with how talks were going. A few hours later, the US and Israel began attacking Iran.

The most coherent reasoning given for these attacks, though, leads us to believe that the conflict is a precautionary action. The Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, described these attacks as a “pre-emptive” strategy to “remove threats against the state of Israel”. The minister did not provide any further explanations as to why there was a need to take military action at present. Additionally, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that the US government knew Israel would take action against Iran, which meant that the US also had to act “pre-emptively” in the face of resulting attacks on US forces. What these statements fail to cover, however, is that Israel was going to attack Iran regardless of the US government’s stance on the conflict. Iran, however, planned to attack US military bases only as a result of the imminent Israeli attacks. This raises questions as to why the US would combine forces with a country that has a clear disregard for America’s security.

The Subsequent Attacks

Following the attacks on 28 February, at least 175 people, most of them children, were killed in an American missile strike on an Iranian school. Later that day, twenty people, including teenagers, were killed when one of the US-Israeli missile strikes hit a sports hall in Lamered. The next day, Gandhi Hospital, in Tehran, suffered extensive damage as a result of a series of attacks. The allied forces have, so far, struck historical sites, including the third-century Shapur Khast castle, and more than 80,000 civilian sites, including 10,000 homes, only in the first two weeks of the war. Additionally, numerous cafes, shops, and other civilian areas across the country have been damaged as a result of the strikes ordered by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. These attacks on civilians are illegal under international law, but the leaders of the US and Israel argue that they are incidental to strikes on nearby military targets.

Iran has continued to describe these attacks as “unprovoked” and “illegitimate”. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has stated that Israeli government and military sites in Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel have been the main targets of its attacks. By 29 March 2026, Israel had reported nineteen deaths as a result of Iranian missile fire since the start of the war. Iran has also attacked countless countries hosting US military bases, including Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Saudi Arabia – many of which have reported deaths of their own civilians and military members. The US has reported thirteen service member deaths as a result of the war. Four Palestinian women have also been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank by a direct missile strike on a beauty salon. These women are the first Palestinian victims of the Iran war. 

The Ultimatum

On Sunday, 21 March, Trump made a statement that the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants if Tehran did not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. Iran originally warned it was restricting passage through the strait, which functions as a passage for twenty per cent of the world’s oil, within hours of the first US-Israeli attacks. Since then, about five ships a day have been passing through with the permission of the Iranian authorities. This deadline was shattered several times over the last few weeks as Trump went back on his statements, announcing delays and making threats, all while proclaiming that the negotiations were going well. Trump’s final 48-hour deadline extension came on the 5 April. Before the 48-hour deadline lapsed, though, the US and Iran announced that a two-week ceasefire would be implemented, following an intervention by Pakistan. 

Hours after the original ceasefire agreement, Benjamin Netanyahu declared Israel’s support for Trump’s decision to suspend the strikes against Iran for two weeks. The Israeli prime minister’s statement added that the “ceasefire does not include Lebanon”. This serves as a response to the 2 March rocket attacks on Israeli positions launched by the Iran-backed group Hezbollah as a way of avenging Khamenei’s assassination. Israel launched missile strikes in response, which resulted in the death of 1,345 Lebanese people, including 125 children. 

The Cost of War

The US-Iran war reveals itself as a deeply complex conflict – a double-sided coin in which neither face is free of blame. Both sides of the war justify their actions by pointing to security concerns, retaliation, and necessity, yet both have contributed to a cycle of escalation that has cost countless innocent lives. Civilian casualties, destroyed homes, and shattered communities stand in harsh contrast to the political rhetoric used to defend these actions. If each side claims to act in defence, then who is left to account for the human cost?

Sources: BBC, The Guardian, PBS, CNN, The New York Times, UK Parliament, Vox, The Independent, The Washington Post, CBS

Written by Nina Lewandowska

Edited by Sarah Valkenburg and Gabrielle Ludes