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I tend to agree. But it's difficult to verify the current levels of Iranian munitions: smaller salvo sizes might indicate munitions destruction or merely conservation; larger salvo sizes might indicate healthy munitions levels or a use-it-or-lose it mentality.
So the war might end with the US claiming to have exhausted Iranian munitions stockpiles, when in reality the Iranians have thousands of missiles left. On the flipside, the war might end with the Iranians claiming to have barely felt it, when in fact the their final salvo in the war was their last gasp.
It's possible that the war will end in a way that makes it easy to determine the winner, but it also seems plausible to me that the war will end with both sides claiming victory and the real measure of that victory will be measured in subsequent behavior over years or decades.
Very much this, and it's the decision-making process of the the subsequent decades in particular that will... not vindicate, but provide context for whose expectations may have been better grounded.
There are two general parts of state-level decision making in geopolitics: you need the resources to do it, and the sort of political leadership to choose those resources. I am far from convinced that the Iranian system will be better positioned for either in the future, even if the desires to toll the straights of Hormuz becomes the post-war status quo.
For state resources, many things are not just a matter of money, but time and capital. The US and Israel claim to have gone after a lot of military industry, and that is neither cheap or quick to replace, nor are the outputs. The nature of losing years to decades of naval or missile investments is that they may take years to decades of reinvestment to rebuild. Until you build another Navy, I doubt even the most hardline Ayatollah will, say, send a blue water task force to escort Iranian oil tankers to China in a US-china war and dare the US to start another war to stop it, with all the implications that has (or could have had in the middle east).
But political leadership matters to. The Iranian political-economic system was already strained enough that there was a 'moderate' faction of pragmatists who were willing to disagree with IRGC-aligned hardliners not in goals, but in the need for reforms to get there. This war seems to have let the IRGC step in and leave the reformists out, and over the longer term states that don't reform can still be aggressive and dangerous, but become less capable over time. There is also a point to be made about the difference between animosity and the belief of personal distance from risk. Ayatollah Khamenei and most of the Iranian high-level leadership had over 30 years of lived experience of well-justified belief that they could wage asymmetric and not-so-asymmetric warfare against the US and Israel and that they wouldn't be retaliated against. Khamenei 2.0 and his core advisors may hate the US and Israel even more than his father, but somehow I doubt they will hold that sort of belief.
None of this is an argument for or defense of the American attack on Iran, but it seems clear to me that this is a war to try and shape the trajectory of the region, and there's more to the future of the region and relative Iranian or US power than the straits of hormuz or if the Iranian theocracy stands.
I realize you're just jawboning and not advocating for this position, but this would have to make the "Trump 8d Backgammon" hall of fame for copium right? "The war that we launched to bring down the hardline theocratic Iranian regime succeeded, because it empowered the hardline theocratic elements, which will lead to their downfall some years down the road!"
Only if it was presented as a reason to do the war, as opposed to a consequence of how the war turned out. Since Trump made no claim that this was The Goal or The Plan, he gets no credit (and has made no claim) for it.
In theory, the Iranians could have chosen another supreme leader aligned with or signalling support for the reformist camp. That they did not, and would not, was predicted by various people, including critics of the potential war before it started. This was generally preseted as a warning, typically in the form of 'a hardliner is bad (for the US/Israel) because they'll be more aggressive,' but that is in no way incompatible with 'a hardliner is bad (for Iran), because they'll refuse reform.' Whether the 'benefits' of Iran assuming greater opportunity costs outweighs the costs of another (quote-unquote 'more') hardline theocrat just goes back to frames of reference on what time scale, and under what sort of paradigm (i.e. negative-sum versus zero-sum versus positive-sum).
Which, as you note, I'm not making a position on. This is just noting the externalities that come with various dynamics.
(And thank you for recognizing / noting openly that you were not taking my... 'jawboning'?- as advocacy. The expectation of any such observation, or critique, being advocacy / defense is one reason I've avoided commenting much on the Iran conflict while I was enjoying a video game hiatus.)
I agree it's intensely frustrating, particularly as each side seems to have arrogated to itself the right to just say whatever bullshit and it doesn't matter, while assuming that any statement by the other side is deeply symbolic of their evil.
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On a long enough timeframe, all one's opponents wind up as dust on the ash heap of history.
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