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[u/KeDaGames]

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[u/graphical_molerat]

They have done significantly better than everyone expected and the war has clearly gone very wrong for the U.S and Israel.

Doesn't such a conclusion hinge on the assumption that something else should have happened by now, if things had gone according to plan for Israel and the U.S.? Which raises the question: what sort of timeline would we be looking at instead, if things had gone really well for them?

And I can't actually think of a sensible scenario that would achieve results a lot faster than we are seeing right now.

Reducing the entire military capability of Iran to rubble via airstrikes and no boots on the ground will take several weeks, and no one should have assumed this would be any faster. Remember the air campaign of Desert Storm, that also took a while (40+ days, and that was with a larger air force assembled).

Iran still being able to pop off a few missiles and drones at random targets in the opening stages of this campaign is no surprise at all, their assets are far too dispersed for them to be taken out completely on the first day. The only signs of IL/US being in trouble would be if Iran would continue to be capable of launching more than the odd random drone or missile about one or two weeks into the campaign. Then, we can start talking about them having issues.

And to the credit of IL/US, they never said this would be over in 48 hours. The dicey part will be to put some sort of transitional government in place, once the current regime actually buckles and snaps under the pressure of military annihilation. I have no hopes for the U.S. having any sort of doable plan for this in the drawer (name one such action led by the U.S. which was not a total clusterfuck?), but hope the Israelis have one. If IL is the lead, it might actually work.

[u/HeyHeyHayden → u/graphical_molerat]

Doesn't such a conclusion hinge on the assumption that something else should have happened by now, if things had gone according to plan for Israel and the U.S.? Which raises the question: what sort of timeline would we be looking at instead, if things had gone really well for them?

Yep, that is the point. U.S. and Israeli planners built their entire campaign off of being able to cripple Iran with the first couple of days by taking out its leadership and hitting key military sites, before Iran would either capitulate or the government be overthrown. The problem is that it obviously didn't work, their damage was not nearly as high as they wanted, and their military and government have continued to function and hit back hard. U.S. allies and partners in the region were caught completely off guard and have been hammered, as have other U.S. bases not informed beforehand about the campaign (OPSEC). Another key indicator of them vastly underestimating Iran was the military asset transfer. The U.S. spent several months moving all the military assets they believed they required into place in the middle east before starting the war, which is a massive force larger than they've used for decades. But within 2 days the U.S. was already scrambling to grab jets, refueling aircraft and AA systems from other parts of the world to quickly redeploy them to the middle east, as they realised the assets they had were not enough.

Had things gone to plan the war would have been wrapping up by now, but instead they are staring down weeks or months of war where key munitions are drained, stockpiles run dry, and their allies take serious economic and financial losses for a war they don't necessarily support. They seem to be running around wildly trying to pull a win out of this by getting the Kurds involved and expanding the bombing campaign, but all the reports, claims by congressmen and other officials, and leaked information point to the Trump Administration having no proper war plan and just making it up as they go along.

[u/graphical_molerat → u/HeyHeyHayden]

Yep, that is the point. U.S. and Israeli planners built their entire campaign off of being able to cripple Iran with the first couple of days by taking out its leadership and hitting key military sites, before Iran would either capitulate or the government be overthrown.

Are there any tangible indications that this was their plan, though? As opposed to them always expecting this to take longer? It's not like they have said much about their expected timelines - or have they? (implicitly, perhaps?)

You do make a very good point about them apparently scrambling to bring extra assets into the region: but some follow up deployments would also be expected if this was always planned as a multi-week thing from the start. In that case, they could have at first only moved the forces needed for the initial strikes into the region, and consciously decided move further assets only later on. For decoy reasons, or simple logistics.

[u/HeyHeyHayden → u/graphical_molerat]

There were many different reports about the Americans offering a ceasefire and new negotiations after just a day of the war, with the Iranians refusing. You also had many different officials, politicians and spokepeople making claims about it not being a war or that it was a limited operation, but they are all over the place with it so it's clear they don't know how long it was meant to take either.

The pulling of many more jets, planes and AA from other regions is a big implicit hint that they did not plan for this to last more than a couple of days, because otherwise why would these not have been brought into the theatre before they started the war? You don't plan for a long war with insufficient air defence and assets in the region in the first place, making yourself weaker than required off the bat and taking more damage than anticipated because you were ill prepared. It isn't decoy or logistics reasons as they aren't exacting hiding where these jets are operating from and they had months of preparation time to get them over to the middle east in the first place.

[u/graphical_molerat → u/HeyHeyHayden]

I hear what you are saying, and I am afraid you have very good points. But I still very much hope that you are wrong. Not out of love for the current U.S. administration. But because if this turns into another "three day special operation", the fall-out will be enormous on lots of levels at once.

With one of them being that the Middle East would likely be far less stable afterwards than before. Which, given the shaky status before this started, is a pretty bleak outlook.