On February 28, the U.S. woke to some surprising news. Through the night, the United States and Israel had begun bombing Iran, killing the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the process. Iran swiftly retaliated, launching attacks against Israel, American military bases in the middle east, and other middle eastern countries. The sudden attack was a stark difference from President Trump’s State of the Union address just days earlier where he said that he was “in negotiations with them” hoping to “solve this problem through diplomacy”. Unlike the U.S.’s involvement in Venezuela, the events in Iran are more long term, with President Trump telling Americans to expect military action to continue for four to five weeks. As of Mar. 9, seven members of the U.S. military have died during the operation, along with estimates of at least 1300 civilian deaths, and hundreds of thousands displaced.
Of the events of the war so far, the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei is likely the most consequential. As the second leader of the islamic republic, he acted as the country’s supreme leader from 1989, taking over from the republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. President Trump has expressed that the United States should have a role in picking the next leader of Iran, though the Islamic state has apparently defied him by selecting the son of the former supreme leader Khamenei.
Iran’s retaliation across the middle east has done more than cause fear; much of the oil production in the region has been severely affected. The Strait of Hormuz, an approximately 20 mile gap between Iran and the UAE, has all but closed. As the largest shipping lane for the oil-rich gulf states, where around 25% of the world’s oil passes through, its closure has shocked markets around the world. Before the war, national gas prices sat at around $2.90 per gallon, now they’re $3.50. In Oregon, gas prices are around $4.20 per gallon compared to around $3.50 before the conflict.
While the United States has limited itself it attacking Iran, Israel has also been fighting another one of its enemies in Lebanon, the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah. Shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks in 2023, the Israeli military engaged in small-scale fighting with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, but this time, they’ve expanded their strikes to the capital, Beirut. As of Mar. 6, 217 people had been killed in Lebanon according to Lebanon’s ministry of public health, along with two Israeli soldiers in the south of Lebanon. Israel has said that they were successful in killing some senior members of Iran’s military leadership with their strikes on Beirut.
Already, the conflict in Iran has proved unpopular for President Trump. A poll conducted by NPR in early March found that 56% of Americans oppose military action in Iran, and less than 40% approve of how Trump is dealing with the war. For the Republicans, the unpopular conflict combined with rising energy prices and Trump’s general unpopularity has put the party in a difficult place. Democrats are already projected to win a majority of seats in the house in the midterm elections this November, and historically presidential unpopularity has led to their party losing more seats in elections.
Article by Oscar Guillemin