When US President Donald Trump launched the war on Iran, he promised a swift and decisive victory. Just ten days into the conflict, he said the United States had “already won the war in many ways.”

Two months on, the fighting has been suspended but a definitive end to the war is nowhere in sight. Washington remains short of clear strategic gains, while a conflict once framed as limited is now dragging much of the world into a widening quagmire – with few, if any, coming out ahead.

“There aren’t any real winners from the war, but there are some countries that are comparatively well-positioned to manage its effects,” Melanie Sisson, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, told CNN.

The Iranian people have found themselves under fire from both the outside and the inside. The US and Israel have struck thousands of targets in Iran – including some attacks on civilian infrastructure – killing more than 3,600 people, including more than 1,700 civilians, according to the advocacy group Human Rights Activists in Iran. Trump has gone as far as threatening to destroy Iran’s “whole civilization’’ if the country’s rulers don’t bend to his demands.