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We are in uncharted territory. This is the first war in which one of the adversaries is going strictly after the elite and is able to actually get them. Which is actually the right way to wage war. If ukraine and russia could reasonably kill each other's key people - there would have been peace years ago.
I am sure that Iran are smart and brave, but I have suspicion that the smart are not brave and the brave are not smart. For a war they have been preparing for 40 years - they don't have a single trick up their sleeve so far. In Ukraine war - we had impressive Ukrainian actions very soon after the start.
There are a lot of "middle managers" in Iran that are both scared for their lives and looking at career advancement opportunities. Soon some of them will figure out that by strategically leaking info to Mossad they will be off their hit list and help weed out opponents.
If it achieves your objectives, very much so. The problem is that so far it does not seem to do that.
Their trick is to close the Strait. So far, they are succeeding with that. If they can keep it up, I think that Trump will run out of popular support before the IRGC runs out of leaders.
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Why are people still stuck on this idea?
Israel tried this with Hamas and Hezbollah. Did it work? Did the flashy assassinations achieve victory? Did Israel destroy Hamas and conquer Gaza? No! If they couldn't destroy a small, poor organization in territory they totally surround with total air control, how are they supposed to defeat Iran?
All Israel managed to achieve in a couple years of fighting is killing a fair few of Hamas, killing a lot of civilians, blowing up a lot of buildings, making the Russians of all people look like positive humanitarians. Unlike the Russians, they made zero territorial gains. And they made people trust pagers a lot less, hate Israel a lot more.
Israeli military practice is so bad it should be first, second and third in 'what not to do'. They suffer an embarassingly big terrorist attack from a foe they should totally outclass. Then they totally fail to capitalize on it in world opinion, quite the reverse. They fail to secure any strategic advantages whatsoever with their much vaunted military, despite enormous expenditure of US munitions. Maybe a few months ago they could claim 'oh at least we decapitated Hezbollah' but Hezbollah seems to have just grown another head like a hydra and are taking huge bites out of the Iron Dome.
It will work because USA has limited goals in Iran. No nuclear program, inability for Iran to close the strait and no long range missiles. And they will be left to live and roll in their islamic sty of their own devise. Freedom for Iranian people, secular regime are nice bonuses, but not that important. If you kill the people that can only say no, eventually some that are amenable to yes will come to power. So the deal that the US is offering Iran is pretty sweet. Eventually there will be a clique of takers. Rule however you see fit a nation of 90m with reintegration into the global economy and the massive growth is nice.
Whereas Israel wants Gaza to not exist. Their dehamasing special military operation needed to be much deeper. And Israel didn't had the guts to conduct it properly.
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I think this is a function of extreme casualty averseness. If they had occupied Gaza and put a different government in power they could have avoided inspiring the hatred that they did and installed a government other then Hamas. Instead they leveled Gaza from the air killed more civilians then the Russians have in several years of war and Hamas is still in power.
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