US and Iran Trapped in a War With No Winners, Expert Says

Washington and Tehran are locked in a mutually destructive conflict that neither side can politically afford to win or lose, according to a leading US foreign policy analyst. Barbara Slavin, a Distinguished Fellow at the Simpson Center, said the Persian Gulf standoff has become a stalemate defined by face-saving rather than military success. "There are no winners in this war," Slavin said in an interview with Mark Owen. According to Slavin, the United States faces rising economic and electoral costs as the conflict drags on. Iran, meanwhile, struggles with shortages, high inflation, domestic dissent, and intensified government repression. Slavin described the current US administration as incompetent in both negotiation and the prosecution of war, leaving neither Washington nor Tehran with a politically sustainable exit strategy. The result, she argues, is that neither side can plausibly claim victory.