When your war is going badly, and you have to convince everyone it's going great, what do you do? If you're Donald Trump - you publish a chart. The American president shared on social media a table comparing the conflict with Iran to earlier American wars, to present it as a short operation with minimal casualties.

The figures he highlighted really do look flattering: Vietnam - 58,220 killed over 19 years. Korea - 36,574 over three years. Iraq - 4,600 over nine years. Afghanistan - 2,000 over 20 years. And Iran? „Only” 18 killed over four months. At first glance, an efficient war. At second glance - that's exactly where the problem begins.

Because behind the number 18 stand names. The Pentagon recently identified two American soldiers killed in Iranian strikes in Jordan: Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan, 25, and Private Isabella Gonzalez, just 19, killed at the Muwaffaq Salti air base. When someone lines up the dead in a chart to prove they won, it's worth remembering that each of those figures was someone's child.

What the chart doesn't show

Military analysts read the same war differently - as a strategic failure. The Strait of Hormuz, open right up until the strikes at the end of February, is now under a blockade that has caused the biggest energy shock in the history of the global oil market. The price of crude oil passed 120 dollars a barrel, and inflation spilled through Europe and Asia. Washington is now spending billions to reopen a passage that had never before been closed.

Oil over 120 dollars a barrel and inflation across Europe - that's not an abstraction that stops at the border. The Strait of Hormuz is thousands of kilometers from Skopje, but part of the fuel that also drives the European economy we're tied to passes through it. The Balkans knows this scene by heart: a distant decision, and the bill arrives for everyone.

Who all of this benefited

The elimination of supreme leader Ali Khamenei, instead of weakening Iran, opened space for the more extreme factions in the Revolutionary Guard. In other words - the hardliners were strengthened, not weakened. And the bill? Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the war has cost 37.5 billion dollars so far, and immediately requested another 87.6 billion in additional funds for the Pentagon. Stocks of advanced American missile interceptors have been drained, which strains US military readiness around the world.

The analysts' conclusion is harsh and simple: massive air and missile campaigns can't force anyone to capitulate without a political strategy and control on the ground. Eighteen dead in a chart look like a victory. But a victory that raises the price of oil, strengthens the hardliners and empties the missile warehouses - that's hardly what the chart wants to sell us.