The Pentagon briefings on Operation Epic Fury leave no room for debate: the US-Israeli air campaign has hit Iran hard. War Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed that more than 15,000 targets had been hit. Tehran’s air defenses are in ruins. The navy has been destroyed. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine reported that Iranian ballistic missile launches against Israel and Gulf partners have fallen by 90% since the first day of the war. With every measure taken on the battlefield, this campaign has dealt a serious blow to the regime.
But wars are not won on target lists. They are won when military force produces a lasting political outcome. More than two weeks into this campaign, that outcome remains undefined. That’s the problem.
Think of the economic consequences. The Strait of Hormuz – the chokepoint through which about a fifth of the world’s daily oil supply moves – is effectively closed. Tanker traffic has come to a standstill. Oil passed $100 a barrel, while Brent reached $119, before Iran’s new supreme leader doubled down on keeping the straits closed. The International Energy Agency called it the biggest oil supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. That is not a rounding error. That is inflation, economic drag and political pressure on every Western government involved.
TRUMP SUDDENLY APPEARS SERIOUS ABOUT ENDING THE WAR AS US VICTIMS REACH AND IRAN FINDS WAYS TO STIT BACK
The military costs are just as serious. Tomahawks, Patriots and long-range missiles – the precision weapons that define American warfare – are being burned at an extraordinary rate. The Pentagon told Congress this week that the first six days of Operation Epic Fury cost more than $11.3 billion, and that figure does not include pre-deployment or munition replacement costs. Defense analysts and current officials warn that the Iran campaign is depleting the precise weapons stockpiles the United States would need to deter China in the Pacific — and that it will take years to replace the depleted stockpiles. Every Tomahawk fired over Tehran is one less available for the Taiwan Strait.
The human costs are real and irreversible. At least seven American soldiers were killed in combat operations before Thursday. It was subsequently confirmed that all six crew members of a KC-135 aerial refueling plane were dead after the tanker crashed over western Iraq while supporting combat attacks. Secretary Hegseth acknowledged the loss, saying “war is hell, war is chaos” and calling the pilots “American heroes, all of them.” They are also sons and daughters of American families – a fact that requires an honest accounting of what we ask them to achieve.
Despite the pounding events, the Iranian regime has not collapsed. Tehran installed Mojtaba Khamenei – the son of the slain supreme leader, described by analysts as a hardliner with deep ties to the IRGC – as the new ruler within days of the outbreak of the war. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards immediately backed him, and he has already pledged to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and vowed to attack every US base in the region. This is not a regime on the brink of surrender.
The IRGC and Iran’s ruling clerics do not view this war merely as a geopolitical battle. They see it as a religious struggle – a defense of the Islamic Republic against what they describe as an American Zionist attack. Regimes fighting in God’s name are not easily coerced by the tonnage of bombs. That’s no excuse for weakness. It is a reality that must shape the strategy.
EX-NAVY SEAL WARNS WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAN NOW WOULD HANDY ‘VICTORY’ TO REGIME
History makes this point clear. Conventional air power has never overthrown a determined government on its own. Not in World War II. Not in Korea, Vietnam, Kosovo, Iraq or Afghanistan. Air campaigns reduce capabilities and shape battlefields. They do not bring about a political collapse – not without a ground force or an internal uprising. Neither comes.
This raises the central strategic question: what exactly is the United States trying to achieve? President Donald Trump has set clear goals: deny Iran nuclear weapons and destroy its ability to threaten its neighbors with missiles and drones. After almost three weeks of strikes, those goals are within reach. But Trump has also suggested he wants to endorse Iran’s next leader and questions whether the Islamic Republic itself should survive. That is not counterproliferation. That is regime change – and regime change requires much more than an air campaign.
The question now is not whether America can continue to attack Iran. Of course you can. The question is whether more strikes will move the country toward a defined end state — or simply drive up the costs of a war without an end line.
Three steps show the way out.
First, complete the remaining military objectives: suppressing remaining missile launch capabilities, clearing Iranian mines threatening the Strait of Hormuz, and completing work on nuclear infrastructure. Finish the job and then stop.
Second, publicly define what “done” looks like. The government has been deliberately vague about the end point of the campaign. That ambiguity may serve the message in the short term, but it is roiling markets, unnerving allies and leaving the American public in the dark about what this war is for.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS ADVICE
Third, a shift from large-scale strikes to sustained pressure: maritime security operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, aggressive sanctions enforcement, interception of Iranian weapons shipments, and a credible deterrent against renewed aggression. Keep the boot on Tehran’s throat without an open-ended air campaign.
In clear terms: complete the military mission and then stop expanding the war.
The United States and Israel won the opening rounds of this battle. The danger now is the pattern that played out in Iraq and Afghanistan: early military success followed by years of costly, inconclusive war that undermines the original victory. America has the firepower to continue attacking Iran indefinitely. What it needs is the strategic discipline to stop when the mission is accomplished.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
The men and women carrying out this campaign deserve more than tactical victories. They deserve a strategy that is as disciplined as their services.
And that also applies to the country.
CLICK HERE TO ROBERT MAGINNIS
