Iran’s massive Sunday night missile barrage was the biggest escalation since Operation Rising Lion began — but that’s bad news for Tehran.
In the first three days of attacks, the IAF reportedly had destroyed about a third of Iran's missile launchers. Iran's options for conventional military attacks were always limited, and those options shrink with every destroyed launcher or intercepted missile.
Looking at the broader picture, there's good news and bad news.
The good news is that the IAF now operates over all of Iran with near-impunity. The Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday that Israel "achieved air superiority over western Iran within 48 hours of starting its war." That's a "feat Russia couldn’t achieve in Ukraine" after three-plus years of fighting, the paper dryly noted.
In the 24 hours or so since, Israel seems to have extended its air superiority over the entire country.
Yesterday, the IAF struck an Iranian airbase at Mashhad, near the border with Turkmenistan in Iran's far northeast. Iran had reportedly moved some of its aged F-4 fighters to Mashhad — which is about as far from Israel as anywhere in Iran — for safety.
Iran’s air force wasn’t much before Rising Lion. Now it’s even less.
Apparently, nowhere in Iran is safe.
The bad news is that the IAF still has only so many pilots, jets, weapons, and sorties it can fly each day. And the mullahs — as we saw during last night's massive missile attacks on Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem — still have a surprise or two hidden up their robes.
AND ANOTHER THING: One left-wing critic complained Sunday on X that Israel needs to show restraint because it has nukes and Iran doesn't. Israel is showing restraint — it hasn't used its nukes. Given what we know about Tehran's intentions (and its missile attacks on Israeli civilian areas), the same would not be true if the roles were reversed. And that, my friends, is why Israel is now at war.
Israel's ability to strike anywhere in Iran creates options that might have previously seemed unthinkable — call it "regime degradation." President Donald Trump reportedly vetoed a Day One opportunity to eliminate Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, effectively nixing regime change.
But Iran no longer has much ability to resist, aside from frightening but materially ineffective missile attacks. NDTV reported that Khamenei was "evacuated to an underground bunker in northeastern Tehran hours after Israel began its strikes on Friday," where he enjoys relative safety. But Israel can — and should — systematically reduce the energy infrastructure that keeps Khamenei's regime afloat.
Broke and hiding away in a bunker is no way for an unloved, illegitimate regime to survive.
Israel could choose to limit its attacks on Iran's energy infrastructure to just what is militarily necessary, but after last night's missile barrage, why should it?
At least publicly, Trump still claims he wants to broker a deal between Israel and Iran. Personally, I hope that's just for public consumption because there's no deal to be had. There never was. That’s why Israel initiated the current hostilities — and why this war must be fought to its conclusion.
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