Well into the second month of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, it is worth taking stock of where things stand. Here’s what things looked like in Iran and its neighborhood before the war began in late February. In other words, Iran was in very bad shape militarily. The 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who famously banned the development of nuclear weapons — was killed and replaced by his son, who is said to be more hard-line than his father. America’s Gulf allies now face a far more unstable and tense environment than they did before the war.

Source: Washington Post April 03, 2026 16:16 UTC