\n<\/p>\n
Opinion – <\/strong>In the past month, US and Israeli operations killed<\/u><\/a> Iran’s senior leadership largely destroyed more than 155 naval vessels 300<\/u><\/a> ballistic missile launchers, and humiliated<\/u><\/a> Elements of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. But scorch marks and craters do not equate to strategic victory.<\/p>\n The initially stated goals of Operation Epic Fury were broad and maximalist: completely destroying Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, missile forces, navy, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and proxy networks. Yet in pursuing these objectives, the Trump administration has found itself obliged to accommodate political realities, employing less means than the full-scale occupation typically required to secure such objectives. The problem is further complicated by a second, related challenge: Even when attacks appear to be successful, the United States has limited ability to verify whether its objectives have actually been achieved. <\/p>\n This dynamic of pursuing maximalist goals with politically limited means creates a strategic tension that cannot be resolved by precision strikes. While B-2s and Tomahawks can destroy targets, convincingly eliminating a country’s military capability has historically required a commitment that Washington has been reluctant to make.<\/p>\n Clearly, Washington appears unwilling to cede territory to fully pursue its stated objectives. The Trump administration, perhaps emboldened by its easy victories in Iran last June and Venezuela this January, has fallen into a trap of its own making. As history shows, half-measures taken in the service of complete victory have often proven disastrous \u2013 perpetuating the conflict, providing little resolution.<\/p>\n validation problem<\/strong><\/p>\n During the first month of Epic Fury, the US and Israel have conducted thousands of strikes, all designed to address the stated ultimate goal of the operation. Reports suggest that these attacks have been tactically effective, causing damage to various forms of Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure. But assessing the actual damage, and the irreversibility of that damage, presents a logistical problem that remote methods cannot solve.<\/p>\n The US is equipped with the world’s most sophisticated surveillance architecture. America’s toolbox of satellites, drones, and artificial intelligence allows rapid assessment of the battlefield and damage caused. This sophisticated monitoring architecture paints an attractive picture of objectives almost or completely achieved, but the real picture remains incomplete.<\/p>\n Remote monitoring cannot determine whether underground nuclear facilities were destroyed or not; What mobile missile launchers survived; Do secret logistics chains still flow; And will the proxy militias continue? To truly assess the effectiveness of Epic Fury, the United States will need to inspect tunnels and warehouses, eliminate hidden stockpiles, and underground enrichment facilities \u2013 feats that cannot be accomplished remotely. Even under the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, verification relied on intrusive, ground-based inspections, underscoring the limitations of remote monitoring in dismantling complex programs.<\/p>\n Battle Damage Assessment (BDA), used to measure the effectiveness of Epic Fury, only measures visible destruction at the point of impact but provides limited insight into the resilience of the targeted system. A crater where a nuclear enrichment facility once stood is an encouraging example of intelligence. But it leaves unanswered questions, such as whether critical components from that facility were moved before the strike, or whether redundant systems exist elsewhere, or whether the brain power that animated the facility survives.<\/p>\n The limitations of the BDA exist particularly against Iran, which has spent years hardening and dispersing its military infrastructure in preparation for this long-awaited attack, all in the hopes of leaving it intact enough to resurface.<\/p>\n The tension between ambitious objectives, limited means, and limited visibility in Epic Fury has been present in previous American conflicts. After Operation Desert Storm, in which President George H.W. Bush stopped short of wreaking total destruction on Saddam’s regime, Washington believed that Iraq’s military capability had been crippled. But uncertainty remained, resulting in a lengthy standoff that ultimately ended with the disastrous invasion of 2003.<\/p>\n Afghanistan is also instructive. During Operation Enduring Freedom, the US became deeply invested in long-range counterterrorism tactics away from airstrikes and special forces. This limited, drone-dependent remote presence failed to eliminate terrorist groups that were mobile and embedded. The result was a two-decade resource drain, America’s longest war, which ultimately failed to achieve its objectives and ended with the resurgence of the Taliban.<\/p>\n The conclusion from both Iran and Afghanistan is that half measures do not serve maximalist strategic goals. The lesson that should have been applied to Epic Fury is not that the US should have deployed more force, but rather that it should have adjusted its objectives according to the resources it was willing to commit \u2013 even before the first Tomahawk was launched.<\/p>\n Yet, during the opening month of Operation Epic Fury, Washington appears on the verge of repeating its familiar, post-Cold War pattern of half measures. The administration’s broader objectives \u2013 dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, missile production, the IRGC, proxy networks, and navy \u2013 are not achievable or verifiable under the constraints Washington has (correctly) imposed on the campaign.<\/p>\n Current approaches against Iran risk leaving behind continued strategic ambiguity. Without physical verification, Iran may well retain, or quickly replenish, the missiles and drones and fissile materials that inspired the epic fury in the first place, which in turn could inspire a long-lasting, half-hearted U.S. commitment.<\/p>\n In other words, Epic Fury could lock the United States into a repetitive cycle of sporadic violence (what Israelis call \u201cmowing the lawn\u201d), with each round signaling that Iran is reviving capabilities it had never fully eliminated. The prospect of a third 21st century quagmire should give war planners pause \u2013 especially given the uncertain strategic value of Epic Fury.<\/p>\n Cipher Brief is committed to publishing multiple perspectives on national security issues presented by deeply experienced national security professionals. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Do you have any perspective to share based on your experience in the national security arena? Send it to editor@thecipherbrief.com for consideration for publication.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspectives, and analysis at The Cipher Brief<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Opinion – In the past month, US and Israeli operations killed Iran’s senior leadership largely destroyed more than 155 naval vessels 300 ballistic missile launchers, and humiliated Elements of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. But scorch marks and craters do not equate to strategic victory. The initially stated goals of Operation Epic Fury were broad and maximalist:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1636,312,9584,10635,379],"class_list":{"0":"post-100776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-cipher","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-maximum","11":"tag-measures","12":"tag-risk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100783,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100776\/revisions\/100783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}