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Source: https://x.com/SpencerGuard/status/2053527380615139421
Who Has the Upper Hand in Iran?
(X) Maj. (ret.) John Spencer - One of the strangest habits in modern war analysis is how quickly survival gets confused with victory. Iran has not collapsed overnight. The regime still broadcasts threats, launches missiles and drones, and floods television and social media with declarations of imagined strength. Much of the analysis mistakes continued existence for strategic success and ignores nearly every measurable indicator of national power. Wars are judged through military capability, economic endurance, political cohesion, freedom of action, strategic leverage, and the ability to sustain power while degrading an opponent's. By those standards, Iran is substantially weaker today than it was before the war began. The foundations of Iranian power have been systematically reduced in ways that will take years to rebuild, if they can be rebuilt at all. The scale of military destruction alone is extraordinary. Much of the senior leadership structure that spent decades constructing Iran's regional military network is dead, including senior IRGC commanders, missile force leaders, intelligence officials, nuclear scientists, operational planners, and even the Supreme Leader himself. Nuclear facilities that represented decades of investment now sit buried under rubble. Its missile enterprise has suffered similar devastation. Large portions of the Iranian Navy and IRGC maritime forces were destroyed. The debate over the Strait of Hormuz reflects a broader misunderstanding about power. By openly threatening the world economy through coercion, Iran reinforced for regional governments and global powers why the regime can never again be allowed to hold that level of leverage unchecked. Governments that once viewed Iran as a difficult but necessary regional power increasingly see it as the primary source of instability threatening economic growth and long-term security. Some analysts continue to argue that because Iran can still fire missiles, threaten shipping, or survive politically, the U.S. is strategically cornered and desperate for an exit. That argument confuses the ability to inflict pain with the ability to achieve strategic success. Those narratives avoid confronting the measurable destruction Iran has suffered, and the strategic value of preventing a terrorist regime from reaching a threshold in nuclear weapons capability and missile production. They also dismiss the importance of degrading a state that spent decades funding terrorism and destabilizing the Middle East. The writer is chair of urban warfare studies at West Point's Modern War Institute.