100 Days of Iran War: Winners and Losers

There may be no clear victor yet, but as the Iran war marks its 100th day on Sunday, early winners and losers have emerged that have upset pre-conflict predictions.

Political and business leaders often tout their first 100 days in office as a timeframe to achieve swift objectives, but as the war hits the milestone, other significant numbers have come to the fore. These include up to 2,211 people killed, more than 22,000 injured and more than 3.9 million displaced, according to missile strikes.com, although estimates vary.

In just over three months, the war has spread to Lebanon, energy markets have been upended, Iran has retaliated with strikes across the Gulf, and the U.S. standing in the region, as well as global diplomacy, have been severely tested, raising questions over who has benefited and who has been hurt so far.

Winners

1. Iran’s Regime

The U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran on February 28 in an operation U.S. President Donald Trump said would be over “quickly.” Initial strikes on Iranian air defense systems, missile launchers and naval assets and the assassination of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials emboldened Trump to push rhetoric about a regime on the verge of collapse.

Iran has suffered extensive infrastructural damage and U.S. Israeli attacks have further destabilized its reeling economy, with its critical energy exports slumping after the U.S. on April 13 imposed a blockade on ships entering and exiting Iranian ports.

However, the regime remains in place and Trump has dialed back earlier calls for Iranians to take over the government as his administration emphasizes the goal of stopping Iran’s ability to gain a nuclear weapon.

Iran has also imposed high economic costs on Israel and the Gulf states, damaged U.S. bases and missile defense assets in the region, and forced Israel, the United States and Gulf states to use slow-to-replenish offensive and defensive munitions.

Additionally, Tehran has in effect closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s hydrocarbons transited. With oil markets convulsed, its unofficial toll system has handed control of the critical waterway to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, for the time being at least.

Meanwhile, Trump’s repeated claims that a deal is in the offing are regularly rejected by Iran, as doubt grows over whether the war he launched has corroded Tehran's ability to make a nuclear bomb.

Rafael Grossi, the chief of the nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Friday that access for its inspectors remains limited. The same day, senior Iranian cleric Mohammad‑Mehdi Hosseini Hamedani reiterated Tehran’s position that its nuclear technology and uranium enrichment cannot be negotiated away.

Much depends on whether a deal can be struck, as Trump has promised.

“America's national security and our reputation are on the line,” former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Digital Strategy Len Khodorkvsky told Newsweek last week after Tehran and Washington reportedly reached a tentative agreement to extend by 60 days the ceasefire and start new nuclear talks.

“Allowing a weak and broke regime to survive-and resurrect its nuclear program at the earliest opportunity, even if that's after President Trump leaves office-will undoubtedly haunt us,” said Khodorkvsky, who backs Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s calls for Iranians to be empowered against the regime. “It will be much harder and much costlier to deal with a richer and stronger regime later.”

2. China

China buys 90 percent of Iran’s crude oil exports and its status as the Islamic Republic’s most important trading partner adds more weight to Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s calls for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz than Trump’s appeals.

As facilities across the Gulf continue to face Iranian attacks, the U.S. role as the dominant Middle East protector appears to be waning, which could give Beijing a new opportunity to shape the regional order.

Amid the pomp of his state visit to Beijing last month, Trump said he had discussed Iran with Xi and that both agreed that it must not get a nuclear weapon and needs to reopen the strait.

Allen Carlson, a Chinese foreign policy expert and associate professor of government at Cornell University, said the symbolism and lack of substantial agreements from the Trump-Xi summit were telling.

“In terms of optics over the past three weeks, Xi has been able to present himself as a kingmaker on the world stage,” he told Newsweek. “Xi and China are in a stronger position, especially when it’s implicitly contrasted with the strategic incoherence of Washington’s approach to the world today.”

While Beijing might have gained diplomatically, there is uncertainty about the economic impact of the Iran war. Pork prices, a bellwether for inflation and consumer confidence in China, plunged last month.

Carlson said that Xi was in a position where the fundamentals of the economy were not particularly stable before the conflict but China has been able to weather the external shock of the war better than most places.

“Xi might even be kind of playing up the world stage aspect of things because the domestic, political [and] economic concerns are much more difficult to address,” he said.

3. Ukraine

The Iran war has taken the focus away from Russian President Vladimir Putin invasion of Ukraine in which Kyiv had already faced dwindling support from the Trump administration.

As energy markets were roiled, the U.S. temporarily easing sanctions on Russian oil imposed because of the invasion, raising concerns that this would hand Moscow a short-term boon.

Prices for Russia’s Urals oil tripled, boosting revenues from energy by as much as $10 billion per month, as per Bloomberg, which said that in the week ending April 5, Russian oil export revenues hit their highest levels since June 2022, four months after the invasion.

However, Ukraine has managed to benefit from its experience in countering Iranian-designed Shahed drones used by Russia and offer its expertise to the United States and its Gulf partners that are under fire in Iranian attacks.

“Ukraine has come out of this Middle East conflict a bit stronger with new partnerships in the Gulf and its ability to demonstrate that it has the leading edge in drone and counter drone capabilities that have now piqued interest in Washington,” said Zev Faintuch, head of research and intelligence at security and intelligence firm Global Guardian.

“So it has new cards with Washington, and it has new benefactors in the Gulf. Ukraine has come out stronger from the war. It probably means that Russia has come out of this a bit weaker.”

Losers

1. Energy Market

Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz spiked the price of the global benchmark Brent crude to around $96 a barrel from its pre-war level of $71, with prices over $100 a regular feature over the last three months, hurting Americans at the gas pump.

Russell Shor, senior market analyst for FXCM, a global financial services company, said that the biggest impact has not been a major loss of supply but rather an increase in the geopolitical risk premium attached to oil prices.

“Investors have had to reassess the risk of disruption around the Strait of Hormuz,” he told Newsweek.

While the conflict has supported prices and increased volatility, the market has adjusted through alternative supply sources, inventory management and changing demand expectations, he said.

"The energy market has certainly felt the impact of the war, but the bigger challenge has been uncertainty rather than a complete breakdown in supply," Shor said. "Oil markets depend on reliable flows, and the conflict has highlighted how quickly geopolitical events can change the outlook.

"Even if a peace deal is reached, investors are unlikely to completely ignore the risks that have been exposed."

2. Lebanon

Lebanon has paid a high price for the war, which widened on March 2 when Tehran-backed Hezbollah fired rockets from Lebanese territory into northern Israel.

The government in Beirut does not control Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded to the rockets by targeting the group’s fighters south of the Litani River closer to its border. The IDF now operates well beyond that line, issuing evacuation orders as far north as the Zahrani River, 6 miles north of the Litani River, and there are concerns that the Israeli presence in 20 percent of Lebanon will become a permanent occupation akin to a two-decade one that ended in 2000.

By capturing strategic vantage points like the Beaufort Ridge and Wadi Saluki, Israeli forces are attempting to establish a robust physical buffer zone, Nasser Khdour, Middle East assistant research manager at the monitor Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), told Newsweek. Hezbollah intensified its pressure, launching in May more than 260 drone, rocket and anti-tank missile attacks-marking the highest monthly total since the start of the war, Khdour said.

Bassel Doueik, Lebanon and Jordan researcher for ACLED told Newsweek on Friday that the Beirut government's inability to assert itself as a main player has led to a weakened position, a marginal role for the Lebanese Armed Forces during war and increased internal sectarian divisions.

“After 100 days of war, Lebanon finds itself in a highly precarious position,” Doueik said.

ACLED recorded nearly 270 property destruction events between March 2 and June 1, with the country’s finance ministry estimating at least $3 billion in wartime damage. The Lebanese Health Ministry says at least 3,500 people have been killed and 10,600 others injured since the start of the war, leading to a severe humanitarian crisis.

The Israeli military has ordered the south's population to head north in its largest evacuation order yet for the country, and the demolition of property has sparked fears over what the displaced population numbering 1.2 million could return to.

"People have not even tried to go back because they know that they cannot go, the destruction is massive," Aline Kamakian who provides meals for displaced people through the charity World Food Kitchen (WFK), told Newsweek.

WCK has served more than 2 million meals in Lebanon during the war at 13 sites, including in the hardest-hit areas of the south, where needs remain acute, access is increasingly difficult and villages continue to be evacuated.

Kamakian said after an initial ceasefire on April 16, some people had tried to go back but most returned to the shelters within three days. “Everybody discovered the destruction that happened to their villages and to their houses."

Too Early To Call

Israel

As well as destroying Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapon, Israel intended to degrade the Islamic Republic’s proxy groups.

“Israel’s aim, which may have been a bit lofty, was to facilitate the conditions by which the Iranian people can rise up,” Faintuch said. “That hasn’t happened yet, but that’s something that’s going to be judged on a much longer time scale.”

Faintuch said that Israel has hit Iran’s proxies hard, including eliminating up to 3,000 Hezbollah fighters since the war started and around 8,000 since its fight against Hezbollah following the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023.

“So certainly, Israel has come out much stronger against Hezbollah in the last in the last 100 days,” he said.

The United States, Israel and Lebanon on June 3 issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire if Hezbollah agreed to halt all attacks and evacuate its fighters south of the Litani River.

But the Institute for the Study of War said on June 4 that Hezbollah and Iranian leaders continue to reject any ceasefire framework in Lebanon that does not meet their maximalist demand for total Israeli capitulation in Lebanon.

“Iran has been able to form a pretty strong linkage between negotiations with the United States and the situation in Lebanon,” Faintuch said. “I don’t think we can say that Israel is necessarily stronger than it was before, but it’s certainly not weak and ultimately everything’s really going to be determined by a final outcome.”

Doueik said Israel's strategy in Lebanon diverges significantly from the broader U.S. approach toward Iran and its proxies.

“Rather than treating the Lebanon front as part of the Iranian conflict, Israel is trying to decouple the two conflicts,: he said. “The decoupling, if successful, aids the Israeli administration in extracting important concessions from the Lebanese government and Hezbollah.”

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This story was originally published June 7, 2026 at 1:00 AM.