The war is over. Iran lost [View all]

The war is effectively over. Iran can't mount a defense, and Israel can do anything they want in Iran right now short of full invasion, which is not in their stated goals. Iran launched some missiles early on, but they were only meant to be a nuisance incapable of contributing to any military objective. As of Wednesday night, they aren't even able to do that.

There is going to have to be a lot of reckoning in Iran when this is over. The Iranian government prepared for one threat, and that was internal uprising. They were not prepared for a foreign adversary, supporting their allies like Hezbollah and Syria, or doing anything militarily to back up their rhetoric.

There is abundant evidence that they tried to avoid military fights, like their timid responses in the last two Israel incidents, their initial public statements about proportional military response to this latest outbreak while Israel was talking about regime change, staying out of the Hamas situation, and failing to support Assad.

Iran can still be a nuisance to the world by messing with shipping and oil, and deploying terrorists against the general public, but they can't defend themselves or take offensive action to support their objectives.

Where should Iran go from here? They could try to surrender, but I'm not sure that will be accepted at this point. Aside from that, I think the future in Iran will depend on whether the military is willing to replace the government. The government failed to prepare the country for their biggest adversary. Leaving the country and the population defenseless is inexcusable and heads should roll (possibly literally).

Israel could still screw this up if Netanyahu decides to be the "king of the ashes."

The world needs to be ready for a bigger, meaner, Iran in the future. They will learn from this and will likely not make the same mistakes again. (I think the same thing will happen with Russia after the Ukraine war.) That's a problem for another day.