The Greek Courier
March 21, 2026
Initially framed by the Trump administration as a swift operation aiming for regime change and the elimination of nuclear fuel stockpiles, the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran appears to be shifting toward more limited and achievable military objectives as political and economic pressures increase domestically. This strategic pivot occurs despite ongoing significant Iranian retaliation, indicating a fundamental miscalculation regarding Iran's military resilience and its capacity for asymmetric response.
Why did the U.S. and Israel fail to decapitate Iran's regime and neutralize its ballistic capabilities?
Despite claims from U.S. and Israeli officials that the campaign has been a resounding success—some reports even suggest Iran's ballistic missile production capacity is "functionally destroyed" and that 80% of its capacity to strike Israel has been eliminated—Iran continues to launch significant attacks. While data indicates a dramatic reduction in the rate of these launches, Iran is clearly rationing its remaining arsenal to inflict maximum political and economic pain, rather than depleting it all in a single hasty attempt.
The miscalculation lies in the belief that a series of surgical strikes could immediately decapitate Iran's leadership and its entire military-industrial complex, triggering a political collapse.
Yet, in Iran’s case, “decapitation” strategies have not produced decisive results. Why? Short answer: because Iran’s political‑military system is resilient, distributed, and adaptable, and because decapitation creates incentives that often make the adversary more dangerous rather than weaker.
Iran’s power is not concentrated in a single individual or office. The Supreme Leader, the president, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the security services, clerical networks and local powerbrokers create overlapping centers of authority. Removing one figure rarely breaks command-and-control or collapses institutions. Succession mechanisms are in place (formal and informal). New leaders often quickly fill vacuums and can claim legitimacy by invoking survival under external attack.
The IRGC and associated security organs are ideologically cohesive and have professionalized after decades of sanctions and war. Purges and losses often strengthen internal loyalty and create martyr narratives that bind elites tighter.
Revolutionary legitimacy and revolutionary-era institutions (basij, local councils, networks inside ministries) provide resilience at the grassroots as well as the top.
At the same time, Iran’s missile, drone, and munitions production is decentralized. Production lines, technical know‑how, and key personnel are spread across many small sites, regional contractors, and a skilled engineering base. Destroying a few facilities slows but does not permanently erase capability.
Stockpiles, mobile launchers, and hardened or underground facilities blunt the effects of leadership decapitation on battlefield capacity.
Then, Iran is a master of Asymmetric and proxy strategies. It uses proxies (Hezbollah, militias in Iraq and Syria, Houthi forces, etc.) and asymmetric tactics to project power and retaliate indirectly. Decapitating a leader in Tehran does little to sever those networks, which can operate semi-autonomously and already have contingency plans. Proxy groups can escalate regionally in ways that complicate the attacker’s political calculus.
External strikes that kill or try to remove leaders tend to trigger nationalist solidarity and popular anger, which can stabilize regimes in the short term. That's what happened with Khamenei's death. It boosted recruitment to militias, bolstered political legitimacy, and hardened public resistance to foreign pressure.
Also, it should be noted that Iranian foreign policy has been resilient because it is shaped by long‑term strategic calculations (security concerns, regional influence, deterrence), not simply the preferences of a single leader. Although Israelis have been keen on effective decapitation, Iran’s extensive counter‑intelligence, redundancy, and hardened facilities make the task both risky and unlikely, not to mention that there is also the risk of misidentification and collateral damage, which can produce international backlash and constrain follow‑on options.
Ultimately, decapitation can have tactical effects — degrade command, remove specific planners, produce short‑term disarray — but it rarely produces strategic collapse, especially against a state like Iran with layered institutions, deep ideological cohesion, dispersed military production, and robust proxy networks. In practice, strikes on leaders are high‑risk, low‑probability paths to the intended political outcomes; they often harden resistance, encourage asymmetric retaliation, and complicate any subsequent political settlement.
Apart from targeted attacks against leading figures, analysts emphasize that Iran has a history of resilience when it comes to rapidly increasing its production of missiles and drones. Although production facilities have been damaged, the underlying knowledge and capacity to rebuild remain intact. Furthermore, Iran’s strategy relies on asymmetric warfare—utilizing proxies and targeting economic choke points—making it less dependent on fixed production sites than conventional military assets.
The prospect of sending ground troops to capture Kharg Island, which handles nearly 90% of Iran’s oil exports, underscores the desperation for a decisive military victory. While capturing Kharg Island could potentially facilitate the end of the war, military experts caution against the significant tactical and strategic dangers associated with such an incursion, even if it is for limited raids.
Assaulting Kharg Island presents substantial risks due to its tactical vulnerabilities. The island is located only about 20 miles off the Iranian coast, which means any U.S. landing force—even a battalion-sized unit—would be directly under threat from Iranian missiles, drones, and artillery. Experts note that this would be the first opposed amphibious landing for the U.S. since the Korean War, exposing troops to saturation attacks from multiple directions, including sea mines and drone boats.
Additionally, historical conflicts demonstrate that external attacks often rally the populace around their government, suggesting that seizing Iranian territory could bolster support for the regime rather than weaken it.
Military analysts also caution that any ground operation, even a limited raid to secure nuclear material or an oil terminal, risks escalating into a far more complex and costly conflict. The logistical requirements to sustain even a small force deep inside Iran would be immense and vulnerable, creating a potential scenario for mission creep into a prolonged war reminiscent of past Middle Eastern conflicts.
The Shifting Endgame
President Trump’s recent indications about "winding down" operations and shifting the responsibility for securing the Strait of Hormuz to other nations suggest a retreat from the initial ambitious goal of regime change. The rising economic costs at home—particularly surging gasoline prices—have clearly forced a recalibration.
The current, more modest objective appears to be strategic disarmament, focused on permanently degrading Iran's ability to project power (including missiles, proxies, and nuclear capabilities) while ensuring the Strait of Hormuz remains open, even if that means outsourcing policing responsibilities to allies. The endgame is no longer regime collapse but rather establishing military conditions severe enough to enforce a settlement that guarantees energy flow and neutralizes Iran's immediate threat capabilities, even if the regime itself remains in power.
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