In the famous baseball movie Bull Durham, one of the mantras is, "sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains."
As we take stock of where Israel and Iran have won and lost during the war, it will also be important to look at those hazy places where it is still unclear who has or will win on a given issue. However, the lack of clarity does not mean there will be a tie; a winner will likely emerge.
Incidentally, this article won’t be analyzing the US’s standing on its own, but more as a secondary part of the picture. What counts as a "win" or a "loss" for Israel versus the US is an entirely different analysis.
Wins
Israel's biggest wins so far were: reducing the future ballistic missile threat, killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killing most of Iran's top military officials, destroying much of Iran's military industrial complex, quickly achieving air supremacy in Iran, and keeping the harm Iran caused to Israel's home front (especially in loss of life) at relatively low levels compared to what it could have been.
Reducing the future ballistic missile threat: Israel (and the US) destroyed 60-80% of Iran's missile launchers, reducing its overall missile fire by around 90%. They also destroyed hundreds of missiles and eliminated not only most missile production sites, but also most of the supply chain in Iran that delivered the necessary items to these production sites.
Israeli estimates that, although Iran may have several hundred to 1,000 missiles that can reach Israel, it could take the regime years to get back to the 2,500 total it had before this war, let alone the 3,000 it had in mid-2025. The existential threat Iran could present to Israel is not gone forever, but has likely been pushed back years.
Killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and most of Iran's top military officials: It is unclear whether regime change will happen, an issue we deal with below in the “undecideds” section. But whether it happens or not, it became apparent by how Khamenei ignored the June 2025 war’s results and the assembled American armada off his coast, that as long as he was in power, the regime would never stop its attempts to produce a nuclear weapon.
Nor would it cease producing high volumes of missiles that could existentially threaten Israel and the regional Sunni Arab states, and eventually, further targets. Removing him became necessary to achieve a tolerable deal on broader issues and regime change.
Likewise, removing his top lieutenants, who ran the country's IRGC and military, was necessary to achieve the same goals, given that most of them were as stubborn as Khamenei about negotiating with the West. Furthermore, removing Khamenei and his top military officials reduced the regime's capacity to counterattack Israel with a hail of missiles.
Destroying much of Iran's military industrial complex and quickly achieving air supremacy: The widespread destruction that Israel and the US visited upon Iran’s military infrastructure will have far-reaching consequences. It not only reduces Iran’s ballistic missile threat but also hampers its overall ability to build and field a variety of aerial, land-based, and sea-based threats.
Many of these threats, such as large volumes of drones and sea vessels, were destroyed, and the much wider supply chain of items needed to manufacture them was also battered. Although Iran could choose to focus its money first on terror against Israel and only after that on rebuilding its military, it is likely that funds that the regime will redirect to revamping its military will take away from what it might have invested in anti-Israel terror.
Reducing harm to the Israeli home front: Between Israel's successful opening surprise attack, the country's multi-layer air defense, and strong awareness and rule-following by Israeli civilians, the harm that Iran's more than 500 missiles caused to Israel's home front was less than what would have been expected. Iran fired fewer missiles than expected, and around 90% of them were shot down.
Losses
Iran's biggest wins (and thus, Israel’s biggest losses) were: surviving attempts at regime change, demonstrating that it could easily choke the world's economy, showing that it could attack and wreak havoc in any country in the region (including around 12 countries other than Israel), and causing widespread harm to Israelis. And most recently: arriving at the ceasefire without having made key concessions on either the nuclear or ballistic missiles issues.
Surviving attempts at regime change: After explaining why assassinating Khamenei and top Iranian military officials was a positive, Iran's replacement leaders managed to steady their ship and so far outlast two much more powerful opponents in Israel and the US to fight another day. This is both a psychological and diplomatic victory for the regime, at least for now.
Demonstrating that it could easily choke the world's economy, Iran closed the Straits of Hormuz. The US tried to use its overwhelming airpower to open it up, and then tried to get NATO to do the same. After that failed, the US threatened massive attacks on Iran's energy and transportation sectors, but the regime stuck to its asymmetric advantage of not needing to "win" and only needing to maintain a threat to the maritime area.
This move and the hike it caused in American gas prices is the single largest reason why the Trump administration ultimately cut a ceasefire deal before securing public and concrete Iranian concessions.
Showing that it could attack and wreak havoc in any country in the region: The next time Israel or the US attacks Iran, they must now consider that the regime has proven itself capable of causing chaos throughout the region with its missile and drone fleets. All of the many defensive efforts reduced the harm, but could not stop this psychological, diplomatic, and economic win for the regime.
Causing widespread harm to Israelis: Iran killed around 40 Israelis and caused almost 7,500 to be hospitalized. In addition, Iran caused around 28,000 property damage claims, likely one quarter of which mean people are out of their homes for an extended period. Although this amount of damage was much less than expected, its cost cannot be ignored. Major factories were damaged in Haifa and in the South.
Iran adjusted its missiles from heavier one-shot warheads to over 70% lighter warheads, but with many more, sometimes dozens, of smaller cluster munitions. Israel knew this could happen, but did not properly prepare for it, just as Israel was taken by surprise by the effectiveness of Hezbollah's use of drones from 2023 to 2024, even though the drone threat was a known quantity.
To be blunt, Israel did not realize how systematically the Iranians would move in this direction to exploit this relatively small blind spot.
Arriving at the ceasefire without having made key concessions on either the nuclear or ballistic missiles issues: The nuclear and ballistic missile issues are also treated in the undecided category below, but however they turn out, Iran had not publicly committed to Israel and the US's terms on these issues prior to the ceasefire, when the leverage was at its greatest.
Undecideds
Regime change: Probably the most crucial issue for how the world will look back on this war will be whether the regime falls in the next six months to a year. If it does, everyone will look back at this war and say that it set the conditions for the most important event in the region in around 50 years.
The war will, thus, be seen as a smashing success. If the regime falls in three years, there will probably be a debate about whether this war caused its fall. If the regime lasts beyond three years, no matter how successful other aspects of the war were, part of this war will be deemed a failure.
This is because both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump publicly stated that regime change was one of their goals of the war (even though both later backed off from those statements).
Ballistic missile comeback: Israel won on this issue and pushed off the existential threat for years. But Iran was still firing missiles all over the region on a daily basis without stopping for more than five weeks and seemed poised to continue. Iran retains somewhere between several hundred and 1,000 missiles that can strike Israel.
Many of its launchers were destroyed, but many were only caved in and can be returned to service through excavation over time. Maybe the most critical achievement of the war was eliminating not only missile factories, but their supply chains. Rebuilding all of this should delay Iran by many years, and may cause it to rethink the project.
But what if China helps Iran accelerate its rebuilding process? And if it does, will the US and Israel be ready to step in and attack Iran a third time after the convulsions the last two wars have put the region and world gas prices through? Will Iran make any concessions on this issue either formally or informally? There are many ways this issue can unfold, and only time will tell.
Nuclear issue: Let us not forget the 60% enriched uranium that is buried under rubble. If you noticed that this issue is barely mentioned in wins or losses, it's because it basically sidestepped this war. The June 2025 war set back Iran on the nuclear issue in a monumental fashion in all areas by at least two years. Moreover, Iran made almost no immediate efforts to reconstitute the nuclear program since June 2025.
In that sense, Israel had already won on this issue before the war ever started. During this war, when Israel struck whatever minor nuclear sights had been left over from prior rounds, it did not bother to do so for several days or weeks, because they simply were not that important.
The only two important nuclear issues were the 60% enriched uranium under rubble at multiple nuclear sites, which Israel and the US bombed in June 2025, and the still-in-progress Pickaxe Mountain facility.
No one touched the 60% uranium. After weeks of speculation about whether Israel or the US would mount a covert raid of ground forces to seize the uranium, both countries appear to have concluded that the task would have been too complex, too time-consuming, and too dangerous for the ground forces. Here, it should be noted that some views of the pre-war negotiations are that Iran was ready to relinquish this uranium to avoid war.
There are counter-narratives that Iran was playing games in the negotiations. Regardless, the only way, as of now, for the 60% uranium to be removed safely is through some sort of deal. The Trump administration said that Iran has agreed to remove the uranium. If that happens, it will be another significant win for the US and Israel. This is not because the uranium presented any near or medium-term threat.
Rather, it is because the uranium could have presented the fastest potential threat if Iran tried to enrich and weaponize it without rebuilding a broader program. If that happens, the US and Israel will need to watch the sites where the uranium is buried, and must be ready to intercept the uranium should Iran try to move it elsewhere.
Apparently, the US considered the Pickaxe Mountain facility too deep underground to bomb, even with its 30,000-pound bombs. There is no imminent threat from a facility that is not yet operational. However, by surviving two rounds of heavy war, Iran has proven that any nuclear items it moves to Pickaxe Mountain may reach an area immune to attack.
Iranian Navy: No one ever mentioned the Iranian Navy before the war. Yet, once it became apparent that some of the key goals of the war might not be entirely achievable, significant attention was drawn to sinking over 150 Iranian ships.
This has not prevented Iran from closing Hormuz, because it achieves this cheaply through concealed sea mines, drones, and cruise missiles. These ships have, to date, never threatened Israel. Although plenty of bombs were spent on them, it is unclear whether all of that was not a waste of time and money.