During the 2003 Iraq War, then–Major General David Petraeus famously said to the journalist and historian Rick Atkinson, “Tell me how this ends.” It is the obvious query to be posed about the conflict with Iran, but it requires a different answer.In the middle of a war, few people are inclined to take the longest view of its origins. The implications of the Austro-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia Herzegovina, in 1908, were probably of little interest to Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, or General John J. Pershing in 1917. But the questions of when and why a war began are essential to understanding it.In the case of the Iran war, we must see the conflict not as a war unto itself but rather as the latest campaign in a war that has gone on since the 1979 Iranian revolution, conducted for the most part with covert warfare, naval skirmishes, and raids. The launch of Operation Midnight Hammer in 2025, in which the U.S. targeted Iranian nuclear facilities, marked a new phase. The war has been fought by the United States, Israel, and most of the Persian Gulf’s Sunni monarchies against a regime that combines an unappeasable anti-Western ideology and exterminationist hatred of Israel with a desire to assert old Persian imperial reach.The most important facts of the conflict are its deep historical and religious roots, and the virtual absence of any possibility of a real reconciliation or lasting peacemaking, although truces and suspensions of violence have occurred and will again. The war will not end until the Islamic Republic of Iran collapses or undergoes some transformation; neither outcome is predictable, and neither may happen in the next few months or years. And if either occurs, it will probably come as a surprise.That glum assessment is only one part of the picture, however. The act of fighting a war transforms many things—it throws a chessboard up in the air, and when the board lands, the pieces are in different places; even the rules of the game may have changed.The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, was followed by half a dozen major pulses of violence. Israel’s smashing counteroffensive against Hezbollah in September 2024 and the subsequent collapse of Iran’s Syrian ally shattered two crucial components of Iran’s strategic system; the Houthis in Yemen attacked Israel, and the Israelis responded with the first-ever large-scale attacks on Sanaa and Yemeni ports; beginning in April 2024, Iran launched its first direct, large-scale missile assaults on Israel; then in June 2025 came the Israeli and American bombing of Iran, followed by the much larger Operation Epic Fury attacks of February 2026.All of these events were unprecedented expansions of violence in the Iran war, as were Tehran’s effort to seal the Strait of Hormuz and now the Houthi endeavor to accomplish something similar in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Together, they mean that although the broader, complex war will likely go on, there is no chance of a return to status quo ante; any arrangements will likely be impermanent. The war has changed irrevocably.Most wars are befogged by mutual misunderstanding. The Trump administration, and probably the Israeli government, overestimated the fragility of the Iranian government, which has continued to function, albeit in a chaotic way, despite Epic Fury’s extraordinary decapitation strikes. The Iranians (like many American commentators, to be fair), have underestimated the deep enmity in which their government is held by President Trump, who has not cut his losses or disengaged from the conflict. The Houthis, for their part, may not fully apprehend the long-term consequences of endangering not only the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia but Egypt (which needs the Suez Canal revenues they now threaten), Israel (which uses the sea route through the Bab el-Mandeb to access Asia), and an array of other countries.It is probably a mistake to think that the larger powers in this war control their smaller clients. Israel can and does act independently of the United States; the Houthis get technical assistance and support from Iran but have their own agenda. And to add one final layer of complexity: These conflicts have been a singular, sustained demonstration of asymmetric warfare. Ballistic-missile barrages have been pitted against exotic but expensive antimissile defenses. The combatants have used flocks of drones, space-based intelligence, extensive assassination of opposing elites, conventional aerial bombardment, mines, and cruise missiles. Lurking in the background are Russia and China, which provide Iran with intelligence and key equipment. As in Ukraine, we are seeing a new face of war.The conflict is less likely to end than to broaden. There may be a pause if, for example, the Saudi kingdom cuts a temporary deal with the Houthis, but having absorbed attacks on its civilian infrastructure and even drone and missile strikes in Riyadh and in the vicinity of Mecca, it cannot tolerate the Houthi threat in the long run. The blockade of Iran’s oil exports will continue, amplifying the internal pressures that have caused domestic explosions before. New coalitions are already forming; witness the Axios report of a meeting two weeks ago in a German mountain resort hosted by U.S. Central Command that included top officers from Israel and seven Arab states—the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and Egypt.What is at stake for all the players is, in some ways, existential. The Saudi monarchy is encircled by Iranian proxies in Yemen and Iraq (where Iranian-supported militias are active), and its ability to send exports through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea drastically reduced. The Iranian government has seen one or two levels of leadership wiped out by the Israelis and the Americans, and knows that the countries would be willing, and probably capable, of doing that again. Israel recognizes that it cannot endure forever under a perpetual hail of ballistic missiles. Trump has every reason to believe that the Iranian regime intends to kill him or, failing that, members of his immediate family.When the stakes go up like this, so, too, does the participants’ willingness to escalate violence. The Houthis have refrained in the current round from attacking Israel, knowing that Jerusalem would be entirely capable of responding to the next wave of strikes with an air campaign that would deprive them of oil exports, electrical power, and possibly even their limited desalination plants. But they have risked that before and may do so again.Most wars are long wars, and most wars tend to escalate in the ways that Carl von Clausewitz predicted, as fear, hatred, and the effort to overcome their opponents will drive combatants to hurt one another more. During World War II, prewar restrictions on submarine attacks on merchant shipping and the aerial bombardment of civilian populations melted away in the early months of conflict. The hostility that the participants in this war feel for one another has only grown over the past three years. It may well get worse if, for example, Iran were to consider that it would gain some advantage from the use of chemical or biological weapons, which it undoubtedly has the engineering ability to develop.Asking how this war will end, therefore, is unfortunately the wrong question. Even if there is some temporary truce or accommodation with the Houthis or Iran, the better request is: Tell me how this gets worse.