As the war on Iran continues it is getting even more difficult to assess the operational losses and the damage caused by either side. All parties, Iran, Israel, the U.S. and various Gulf countries, practice information warfare and censorship. They exaggerate their successes and do not admit their losses.
It makes little sense then to make any statements about the progress of the war as it unfolds on the ground. We will have to wait and look for irrefutable evidence before guessing the outcome.
A month ago the Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei had warned that any attack on Iran would develop into a regional war. He could have added that it would have global consequences.
Khamenei’s prediction has -to some extend- come true. Iran has attacked various U.S. bases in western Gulf countries. The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh was hit. Hizbullah in Lebanon has launched drones against a U.S./British base in Cyprus. Israel is invading Lebanon and the West Bank. Iraqi militia have launched attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. Locals have attacked U.S. consulates in Pakistan.
But the Gulf countries themselves have not yet entered the war. They have spent their air defense after defending against missile and drone attacks on U.S. bases. They are now low on ammunition and the U.S. is in no position to back their needs.
Several small hits have been reported against oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Iran has denied to have attacked those sites. It is possible that Israel or the U.S. is launching these strikes to incite the Gulf states to more actively join their attack on Iran. I doubt that they are stupid enough to do so.
The Strait of Hormuz is closed. Qatar has stopped its production of Liquefied Petroleum Gas. Iraq is throttling its oil production as its storage capacity in Basra is full as no tankers arrive to load its products. All together some 20% of the daily global oil and gas production has been cut off or is endangered. Global oil and gas prices have already increased dramatically and are likely to rise further. Gas stocks in Europe are low as are oil reserves in India. A long war may well threaten the economic and social well being in those regions.
In its usual amateurish ways the Trump administration is trying to blame Israel (vid) for the start of the war:
Rubio: There was absolutely an imminent threat and it was that we knew that if Iran was attacked and we believe that they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow
So the U.S. had to ‘pre-emptivly’ attack Iran because Israel was going to attack Iran?
The New York Times is trying to support that meme with the opening line of its tick-tock report about the start of the war placing the blame (archived) on the U.S. proxy:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel walked into the Oval Office on the morning of Feb. 11, determined to keep the American president on the path to war. …
But who ordered two aircraft carrier and some 250 U.S. attack planes to the Middle East? Who had urgently wished for Israel to attack Iran to have an excuse to join the fight?
Just a week ago Politico reported:
Senior advisers to President Donald Trump would prefer Israel strike Iran before the United States launches an assault on the country, according to two people familiar with ongoing discussions.
These Trump administration officials are privately arguing that an Israeli attack would trigger Iran to retaliate, helping muster support from American voters for a U.S. strike.
The calculus is a political one — that more Americans would stomach a war with Iran if the United States or an ally were attacked first.
It is easy to blame Israel for this war but all the means to wage it, and the decision to launch it, were coming from the White House. The war was not started and is not fought for Israel but to advance the global position of the United States.
Rubio and Trump just want to cover their asses by misdirecting the anger of their MAGA follower over the war towards Israel. It is doubtful that any of them will swallow that nonsense.
It is the U.S. which wants to ‘regime change’ Iran. The chance to do that by air-power is zero. Their is also no proxy force, internally or externally, that would be willing to fight a ground war within Iran. Thus the U.S. campaign is destined become a failure.