Day 19: The United States and Israel Are Still Winning in Iran

In my Day 7 assessment, I argued that any serious evaluation of who is winning in this war must begin with a shared understanding of political objectives. That remains the central problem in much of the commentary today. Too many analysts claim tactical gains are being offset by strategic failure. That argument often reveals less about the battlefield and more about a fundamental misunderstanding of strategy itself.

Strategy in war is not a checklist. It is not a fixed plan written on the opening day and executed step by step until completion. Strategy is the purposeful alignment of ends, ways, and means to achieve political objectives in conditions of opposition and uncertainty.

That means strategy evolves. It adapts to enemy actions, battlefield realities, and emerging opportunities. It is a continuous process of aligning military action with political purpose.

Yes, military campaigns have phases. Operation Epic Fury clearly did. Initial strikes targeted command and control and air defense systems. That was followed by systematic attacks on missile and drone capabilities. These actions created the conditions to expand air operations, including the use of gravity bombs against hardened targets. These are operational phases. They matter. But they are not strategy.

Strategy is the logic connecting those actions to political objectives and adapting that logic as the war unfolds.

This is where much of today’s analysis breaks down. When pundits argue that the United States is winning tactically but losing strategically, what they are often revealing is not insight but a lack of agreement on what the strategy actually is. If you do not define the political objective, you cannot assess whether strategy is succeeding.

So we must start where strategy always starts: what are the political goals?

For the United States, the objectives have been clear. Deny Iran a nuclear weapon. Destroy its missile and drone programs. Neutralize its ability to threaten maritime commerce, especially in the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint through which a significant portion of the global economy flows. Reduce its capacity to project power externally.

This is not a war of regime change. It is a war for regime behavior change. The United States is not seeking to replace the Iranian system of governance. It is seeking to force that system to abandon the behaviors that threaten core U.S. national interests, including preventing nuclear proliferation, protecting global commerce, and ensuring stability in a critical region.

Iran’s goals are equally clear through its actions. The regime seeks to survive. It seeks to retain its nuclear potential, preserve its missile and drone arsenals, and maintain its ability to use the Strait of Hormuz as a tool of global economic coercion. It seeks to continue projecting power while maintaining internal control through repression.

With those goals established, the question becomes straightforward: who is achieving them?

On Day 19 of Operation Epic Fury, the answer remains the same. The United States and Israel are still winning.

The scale of what has been accomplished is not abstract. It is measurable in both capability and leadership.

According to U.S. Central Command, U.S. air and naval strikes have damaged or destroyed more than 120 Iranian naval vessels and eliminated ballistic missile and drone launch sites critical to Iran’s ability to threaten the region.

American forces have flown more than 6,500 combat flights and struck over 7,000 targets across Iran, focusing heavily on military infrastructure tied to missile forces, coastal defense, and power projection.

Israel’s contribution has been equally significant. The Israeli military reports dropping more than 10,000 munitions in over 7,600 strikes against more than 2,200 regime targets, conducted across roughly 5,000 sorties.

These are not symbolic numbers. They reflect sustained, large-scale combat operations designed to dismantle the regime’s military architecture.

The effects are clear. Iran’s ballistic missile launch capability has been reduced by roughly 90 percent, and its one-way attack drone capability by approximately 95 percent. Its ability to impose cost externally has been fundamentally degraded.

Iranian naval assets tied to asymmetric warfare and Hormuz disruption have been hit, including hardened facilities requiring heavy penetrating munitions. This directly targets one of Iran’s core strategic levers, its ability to hold global commerce at risk through the Strait of Hormuz.

These operations also set conditions for follow-on options, including the potential reintroduction of escorted shipping once militarily feasible. That would not signal escalation, but the continued execution of strategy, ensuring freedom of navigation while denying Iran its ability to use the Strait of Hormuz as economic coercion.

In the opening phase alone, approximately 40 senior Iranian leaders were killed in coordinated strikes.

Among the most senior figures across Iran’s political, military, and internal security echelons eliminated so far:

• Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the central authority of the regime for more than three decades

• Ali Larijani, de facto national leader during the conflict and former head of the Supreme National Security Council

• Esmail Khatib, Minister of Intelligence and key architect of internal repression

• Ali Shamkhani, senior national security and nuclear policy strategist

• Abdolrahim Mousavi, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces

• Aziz Nasirzadeh, Minister of Defense

• Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the IRGC Ground Forces

• Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the Basij paramilitary force

Beyond these, multiple brigadier generals, intelligence chiefs, nuclear program leaders, and operational planners have been eliminated across the IRGC, Ministry of Intelligence, and internal security apparatus.

This is not decapitation as historically understood. This is the systematic removal of entire echelons of leadership across political, military, intelligence, and internal repression structures.

And that brings us to a critical analytical point that many commentators are missing.

It is not accurate to assume that replacements will simply step in and think, act, and perform exactly like those who were removed.

That assumption reflects a static view of individuals and organizations that does not hold under conditions like this, especially at a scale never before tested.

What is happening in Iran is without modern precedent. Entire layers of leadership, networks, institutional knowledge, and personal authority have been eliminated simultaneously. This is not the loss of a single leader. It is the destruction of interconnected systems of control, decision-making, and coercion.

Leadership in authoritarian regimes is not interchangeable at scale. It is built on relationships, trust networks, ideological alignment, and personal loyalty over decades. When those are removed in waves, what follows is not seamless continuity. It is disruption, fragmentation, competition, and uncertainty.

We are in uncharted territory.

The cumulative effects go beyond command and control. They strike at regime cohesion, morale, and will. They alter how decisions are made, how risk is calculated, and how the regime perceives its own survival.

That matters for strategy, because behavior is shaped by capability, leadership, and perception. All three are now under sustained pressure.

While the United States has remained focused on defined military objectives, Israel appears to be operating along a complementary but broader line of effort.

Israeli operations have targeted not only external military capabilities but also the internal mechanisms of regime control. Basij leadership, checkpoints, internal security nodes, cyber control centers, and the regime’s repression infrastructure have been systematically dismantled. These are the tools the regime uses to control its population.

By targeting them, Israel is shaping the internal conditions that could make regime change possible, even if that is not the declared objective of the United States.

This distinction is critical. The United States is pursuing behavior change. Israel is creating the conditions for that and the possibility of something more.

Meanwhile, Iran has failed to achieve its core objectives. Its military capabilities have been degraded. Its leadership structure has been shattered at multiple levels. Its ability to threaten the Strait of Hormuz is under sustained pressure. And its regional position is weakening, not strengthening.

Iran has also failed in two additional strategic aims that have been evident since the start of the war. First, to impose escalating costs on the United States, Israel, the global economy, and regional actors in a way that would force restraint. Second, to fragment the coalition opposing it.

Instead, the opposite has occurred.

Iran’s actions have galvanized regional alignment and broad diplomatic support. A United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Iran passed 13–0, with two abstentions, and was co-sponsored by roughly 135 countries, underscoring the breadth of opposition. Gulf states that once balanced relations with Tehran have moved closer together in response to the threat. Even countries that previously maintained pragmatic ties with Iran are now reassessing its role as a destabilizing force and a direct risk to their own security.

Rather than fracturing its adversaries, Iran has strengthened them.

None of this suggests the war is over. Strategy is dynamic. Iran retains agency and can adapt.

But strategy must be judged against political objectives, not selectively chosen data points.

Observers should be cautious of analysis that cherry-picks indicators to fit a predetermined conclusion rather than assessing performance against stated objectives. Claims that Iran continues to export oil, for example, are being presented by some as evidence that the campaign is failing. That misunderstands both the objectives and the conduct of the war. The United States and Israel have the capability to target Iran’s oil exports, but have chosen, at least for now, not to. That is a policy decision, not a military limitation, and it is not a relevant measure of success in achieving the defined strategic goals.

I do not make predictions. War is uncertain, complex, and only partially visible to outside observers. What matters is disciplined assessment grounded in military theory, available evidence, and a clear understanding of political objectives.

By that standard, as of Day 19, the conclusion remains clear.

The United States and Israel are achieving their strategic aims. Iran is not.

They are still winning.

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John Spencer is the Chair of War Studies at the Madison Policy Forum

He is the coauthor of Understanding Urban Warfare

Learn more at www.johnspenceronline.com

X: @SpencerGuard

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.