Israel was hoping the war would be over in a few weeks: www.haaretz.com/israel-news/... Iran was prepared for a 2-6 month war: www.iranintl.com/en/202506228... Israel had aimed for swift regime change using allies inside Iran and was caught off guard when this didn't happen
Israel had air dominance... in the western third of Iran, a country with 90 million people. They were limited in targets by their professed regime change mission. Meanwhile, Israel air defenses were unable to stop Iranian bombs from taking out chunks of downtown Tel Aviv. This will cost billions
Air defences can never provide a 100% shield against anything. Especially not ballistics. And Israel knew very well that Iran had thousands of missiles available. If they really expected the war to be short, they are indeed profoundly stupid
> Israel had aimed for swift regime change Wow, thank you. I had no idea they were dumb enough to expect that (or material damage to the nuclear programme either)
I think there was an intelligence failure involved. I don't know what Mossad thinks, but ordinary Zionists and Israelis I know believe strongly in an imminent Pahlavi takeover. Israel deployed 700+ domestic agents to decapitate the regime, who were mostly caught in flagrante delicto.
October 7th was an intelligence failure. Not really seeing that this time. I suspect both would *prefer* to call a halt now and that both are *capable* of sustaining the war indefinitely, but I’m not seeing that as indicative of who has ‘won’, nor any sign that US involvement has had an impact
Israel has killed a fair number of pretty senior Iranian officials at the cost of rallying Iranians to the flag (& done negligible damage to the nuclear programme). Against which Iran has killed an few Israeli civilians, using relatively expensive weaponry (Correlli Barnett would not be impressed).