Iran's objective in this war was never Washington's objective. The United States went in for regime change, the nuclear programme and the missile forces. Iran went in to get American bases out of the region. Read the last three months by that measure and it is close to done.

Start with Jordan. King Faisal Air Base has been evacuated. Muwaffaq Salti is reported out of service entirely after repeated strikes. Move along the Gulf and the Financial Times has US personnel and assets withdrawn from Kuwait and Bahrain, with CENTCOM saying openly that it is weighing a permanent reduction in Kuwait. Bahrain was the expensive one: the Navy's Fifth Fleet headquarters was largely emptied before the fighting started, around 1,500 personnel and their families moved out, and later strikes are said to have wrecked the radar and communications equipment left behind.

Then Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Prince Sultan and Al Dhafra were both hit — hangars, tankers, aircraft, communications centres — and personnel pulled from both. Qatar is worse. Al Udeid was the largest American facility in the region and CENTCOM's forward headquarters, and most of it was emptied before the war even began, which tells you what the Pentagon expected. Strikes afterwards brought operations to a halt.

Iraq is the clearest marker, because it comes with a date. The last five Patriot batteries have left Erbil, and every remaining American soldier is due out by September 30. That would be the first time in twenty-three years with no US military presence in the country. Earlier, Iraqi PMF units pushed the Americans out of Victory Base in Baghdad, which was once the largest foreign base the United States operated anywhere in the world.

Some of this is firmer than the rest, and it is worth saying so plainly. The Financial Times reporting is solid. The Iraq withdrawal date is announced policy. The strike counts, the damage figures and the claim that Channel 14 has the US quietly pulling its aircraft from the frontline bases ringing Iran are claims, some of them single-source, and I would not build a case on them alone. The case does not need them.

Because here is the part that will be argued about for years. While the war was still running, Iran's Supreme Leader offered Washington a negotiated withdrawal — leave the bases, end the war. The United States refused. And then it left anyway, on a slower timetable, at a much higher price, without the agreement it could have had. That is not Iran winning a war in any conventional sense; it lost cities, infrastructure and people. It is something narrower and more uncomfortable: a country with cheap drones and ballistic missiles set an objective the world's strongest military did not think it could impose, and imposed it. The bases are emptying either way. The only thing refusing the offer bought was the manner of the exit.