Fifty years from now, when the historians of the day struggle to make sense of the second coming of Donald Trump, the temptation to refer to the Iran war of 2026 as the "Seinfeld War" will be irresistible. That is because, as Jerry Seinfeld so frequently observed, his hit 1990s television series was "a show about nothing".
The difference, of course, is that while Seinfeld delivered many laugh-out-loud moments, admittedly sometimes with a very dark twist, the war within Iran has been conducted in such a way as to make the very angels weep. This brief but brutal three-month campaign achieved absolutely nothing of substance, cost billions of dollars, up to 10,000 lives, and left the geopolitical landscape more volatile than it was before the first missiles were launched.
Consider the primary terms of this newly minted peace agreement. The strategic shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz are scheduled to reopen to global trade. This sounds like an extraordinary diplomatic triumph until one remembers that the vital waterway was completely open before the United States and Israel launched their initial strikes.
Similarly, Tehran has solemnly pledged that it will not be actively pursuing a nuclear bomb. Again, international observers note this merely repeats the exact diplomatic position the Iranian regime maintained before the hostilities commenced.
The physical destruction across Iran is undeniable, with much of the regime's conventional military infrastructure reduced to smouldering rubble. Yet this tactical success came at a staggering strategic cost to the Western alliance. The United States and Israel have severely depleted their own stockpiles of sophisticated, highly expensive and exceptionally difficult-to-replace precision munitions.
This depletion directly compromises broader Western obligations, drastically reducing the capacity to support Ukraine on one hand and to deter China from launching an attack on Taiwan on the other.
While President Trump loudly claims that Iran suffered a significant defeat and grew desperate for a deal, the reality is that Iran successfully defied the combined military might of a global superpower and its most technologically advanced Middle Eastern ally for three months, while retaining the capacity to strike back at will.
Critics openly mocked the deployment as the "Epstein war", claiming the conflict was a cynical diversion from that notorious scandal.
More damagingly, the conflict exposed a profound strategic rift between Washington and Jerusalem. Israel, which originally sought to eliminate the Iranian threat once and for all, emerges from this campaign weaker than when the hostilities began.
The entire peace deal is predicated on the optimistic assumption the United States can stop Israel from responding with major force in the event it faces renewed attacks from Hezbollah or other regional proxies. With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing a volatile domestic electorate, the chances that the Israel Defence Forces will remain passive under future provocation are Buckley's and none.
Australia has ridden out the immediate economic crisis far better than most analysts anticipated. The nation avoided massive fuel shortages and the chaos of petrol rationing. The federal government's 50 per cent excise exemption successfully kept a lid on runaway prices, even though Canberra had to be dragged kicking and screaming to that point.
Australia is not out of the woods yet. It will take several months before the status quo ante bellum is restored. The West is back on the aircraft carrier beneath George W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner. This is not peace, just a pause.
