Introduction
Shortly after coordinated U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28, President Donald Trump publicly listed multiple strategic goals: substantially reduce Iran’s ballistic missile and long-range drone capabilities, prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, curtail support for proxy forces in the region, and foster conditions that would lead to regime change. Now, more than three months on and with a preliminary peace framework reported, a review of the available evidence shows mixed progress toward those aims.
Missiles and drones
Prior to the conflict, Iran possessed what analysts described as the largest ballistic missile stockpile in the Middle East, estimated at between 2,500 and 6,000 missiles spanning multiple types. Some of those systems had ranges capable of striking Israel - as far as 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) - and a subset could carry cluster munitions, which complicate defense. Iran was also a significant producer of long-range unmanned aerial vehicles, notably the one-way Shahed drone that has seen use both by Tehran and by Russia in Ukraine.
U.S. sources told reporters roughly one month into the war that about one-third of Iran’s missile stockpile had been destroyed, with another third possibly damaged, destroyed or buried. Speaking to Congress on May 14, U.S. Admiral Brad Cooper said Iran’s capacity to build and stockpile missiles and long-range drones had been set back by years. Cooper also reported that more than 1,500 missiles and 6,000 drones had been intercepted by the U.S. and its allies over the course of the conflict.
Despite those reported losses and interceptions, the exact number of missiles remaining in Iran’s inventory is uncertain. Iran retained the ability to strike regional U.S. allies during the conflict - most recently launching salvos at Kuwait and Bahrain on June 6 and firing missiles at Israel on June 7 - though those countries said the attacks caused no significant damage.
Conventional military posture
The U.S. military has asserted that it degraded Iran’s conventional force projection in the region. Admiral Cooper told Congress that U.S. and allied strikes had destroyed 161 Iranian naval vessels and disabled 82% of Iran’s air defense systems. He further assessed that the Iranian air force, which previously carried out as many as 100 sorties daily, had ceased conducting missions.
Nevertheless, Iran was able to effectively interdict traffic through the Strait of Hormuz for the duration of hostilities, disrupting merchant traffic along a route that transports roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies. Tehran employed speedboats, mines, drones and missile boats to bottle up the strait and constrain maritime movement despite damage to its formal naval and air defense assets.
Nuclear program
President Trump has repeatedly framed his central objective as preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iranian officials have consistently maintained that their nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes and not directed toward weaponization. Available evidence since the strikes indicates the war did not produce a decisive reduction in Iran’s nuclear capability.
U.S. intelligence last month assessed that Iran would require less than a year to produce a nuclear weapon - a timeline that matches the estimate provided after the June 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The status and scope of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile and centrifuge capacity remain core issues in ongoing negotiations. According to accounts of the talks, negotiators will address those matters once the framework deal is formally signed, expected on Friday. President Trump has insisted that Iran’s enriched uranium must be removed from the country, while Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has said it must not be exported, according to sources.
Iranian proxy networks
The president also declared on March 2 at the White House that Tehran must be prevented from continuing to arm and fund proxy forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen - militias that Iran has used for decades to project influence. Since the onset of the conflict, Iran has shown no clear willingness to cease support for these groups. Still, U.S. military assessments and independent evaluations indicate Iran’s proxy network is considerably less effective than it had been.
Some factors behind that decline predate the February strikes. Following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli operations killed many of Hamas’ senior leaders and thousands of its fighters in Gaza. Israel also targeted and removed substantial portions of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon. The collapse of the conduit through Syria - tied to the disintegration of the former President Bashar al-Assad’s rule in 2024 - interrupted a key route for resupplying Hezbollah. In addition, international sanctions and Iran’s economic difficulties have constrained Tehran’s capacity to finance and equip proxy forces.
Throughout the war, Iran-backed groups did not play a dominant role: Hamas did not launch attacks from its Gaza enclave, the Houthis did not significantly disrupt Red Sea shipping from Yemen, and Hezbollah entered the conflict on March 2 by launching missiles and drones into Israel. Israel’s subsequent airstrikes and a ground invasion in Lebanon have resulted in nearly 3,700 deaths and displaced about 1.2 million people in Lebanon. The conflict has also caused the deaths of 28 Israeli soldiers and four Israeli civilians to date.
In testimony to Congress in May, Admiral Cooper said Iran no longer possesses the ability to reliably supply its proxies with advanced weapons, though he did not provide detailed definitions of what that limitation entails.
Regime change and leadership
Before the strikes began, President Trump encouraged Iranian protesters to attempt to unseat their government and described the reported death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28 as the protesters’ "single greatest chance" to seize control. On March 6, he asserted the war would only end with "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" by Iran coupled with the emergence of a new, "acceptable" leader.
The conflict did not succeed in toppling Iran’s theocratic system. The president has since claimed that an objective was met, citing the replacement of Iran’s Supreme Leader by his son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and described the new leadership on March 29 as "a new, and more reasonable, regime." In recent weeks, the president has not reiterated explicit calls for the removal of Iran’s leadership.
Assessment
The record after more than three months of conflict and diplomacy shows an uneven set of outcomes relative to the President’s stated aims. Iranian missile and drone inventories appear to have been substantially degraded and Tehran’s conventional power projection has been impaired in specific ways. Iran’s proxy networks are less capable than before, though they remain active and Iran has not abandoned them. Crucially, Iran’s nuclear capability remains largely intact under current assessments and will be a central bargaining item as negotiators finalize the framework agreement.
As negotiators prepare to formalize the framework, key unresolved questions persist about the fate of Iran’s enriched uranium, the precise remaining scale of its missile and drone inventories, and the operational reach of its proxy network. Those variables will determine whether the preliminary deal and recent military actions have produced enduring changes to Tehran’s strategic posture.