Iran decentralized its military and designated 5 backups for all leaders, so it was prepared for strikes on military leadership. Iran’s military may be resilient and prepared for a long war.
The Trump administration seemed to think that the Iranian regime would implode and the war would be over in days. We can see this in their shifting explanations to the war and Trump’s comments about his original expectations.
If the Iranian regime and military are really resilient and not close to breaking, then the United States is losing this war. It doesn’t matter how many military successes the US and Israel have, the objectives of the war are either regime change or a long-term weakening of Iran. Without Iranian leaders agreeing not to rebuild their offensive capabilities, they will rebuild them and the war will have been a failure.
Looks like a Kuwaiti pilot, trying to defend against Iranian drones that were hitting his country, mistaked three American planes for attacking drones and shot them down.
The US military is awesome, but I’m skeptical it will achieve substantial war aims. Killing a lot of people and destroying a lot of equipment is a means to an end. It means very little if we don’t have a long-term major success. I’m skeptical the US and Israel will get there, but I hope they do.