If you look at what has been achieved versus what was achieved in the same time period in the previous Gulf wars (which had much more buildup), the military strategy so far is going better than history would have indicated and is probably way ahead of what was planned.
GWB’s Gulf “war”, one of the biggest modern blunders this country has made, being a measuring stick for the new foray in killing civilians in the Middle East, is not a great starting point for any “actually we’re doing well” narratives.
None of that changes that militarily the start of that war was considered extremely militarily successful, and this one is off to an even more successful start.
And your original response to me had nothing, at all, to do with what I originally wrote, hence me expanding on what I wrote that you responded to, not your new tangent.
Military/tactical success does not mean strategic victory, but understanding the current reality of both is worthwhile. There is plenty of other discussion here on strategic victory for you to comment on/add your insight.
So I guess we are both just talking past each other.
My man, you said "If you look at what has been achieved versus what was achieved in the same time period in the previous Gulf wars ... " - I responded directly to that, saying it was a stupid measuring stick.
If you wanted to say different things, you should have said them. What you said was bizarre and silly. Come on, now.
During the first 2 weeks of the Gulf War we lost 12 aircraft to enemy fire. 8 to Iraqi SAMs, 3 Iraqi AAA, and 1 lost in air combat (an F/A-18C Hornet shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25). Losses resulted in 19 deaths and 10 POWs. We had a 70% interception rate on Iraq's ballistic missiles versus 90% on Iran's. We were not able to find/stop Iraq's launchers during the entire war, meanwhile we have footage of eliminating some of Iran's.
We now have drones allowing us to do lots of recon without risk to our planes. Last I know we've lost 14 drones. In Iraq that would have been 14 piloted jets. This allows us to do more/more risky recon, and at a higher operational tempo as they can be in the air longer, don't have pilot fatigue, etc.
We have removed the top government officials, and continue to remove high value targets. Today Ali Larijani, one of the orchestrators for the mass killing of Iranian protestors, was killed along with Basij cheif Gholamreza Soleimani who bragged about personally beating protestors and whose forces use rape against women routinely, along with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Militarily we have been extremely successful in our objectives. How that translates politically in Iran is unknown. But militarily it can't be denied. The start of the Iraq war is unilaterally considered militarily successful, and this war so far is wildly more successful than that was.
You are talking about political success, and we won't know how that goes until the final outcome, but if we are successful we may never know (if we stopped a nuclear program that would have happened, how do we know we did?).
Currently we can look at military success, and it's pretty easy to see militarily we are meeting our goals.
It reads like military analysis of a military action. Strategic and tactical/military success are not the same thing, but both are worthwhile discussions to understand events. You seem to want to comingle the two but it'd probably be more productive for you to discuss your proffered topic of strategic success in one of the many threads here related to that.
How so, will Iran be less likely to send rockets and drones at their enemies? Or will they ramp up as soon as they are able? They might be okay with it taking days, weeks, months or even years to rebuild and redeploy their munitions. Has the oppressive regime changed over, or are they more angry than ever for yet another violation of their sovereignty? Iran contains one of the longest running civilizations on earth, you seem to be assuming a lot after ~3 weeks, especially since the U.S. and Israeli sides are dishonest in their proclamations of accomplishment.
Thinking about it from a first principles pov, the regime lost many of its key people, officers, and a lot of infrastructure and resources.
This 100% had some effect on its ability to function. The question is what effect.
Since it is a religious ideological movement, it has very strong cohesion, so its not going to break apart, demoralize or change its core principles.
It will also maintain the support of the highly religious Shias, however,while millions, they are a minority in Iran.
What its probably going to lose is its logistical capabilities, and its ability to exercise power and to make decisions in the periphery.
So it might still hold Tehran and places where it is strong, but Iran is a huge country, with an enormous population and mountainous geography. Places farther from the center might slip out of the regime's control. And it will need to work much harder to maintain the same level of control that it had before the war in Tehran and large cities.
This means that when the dust settles it will be either challenged by oppositional forces, or be forced to make concessions to gain back authority.
If it will try to massacre itself back to power, there will be a civil war.
