The U.S. and Iran Are Fighting a Massively Asymmetrical War

The Strait of Hormuz presents a classic war theater for an insurgency to bog down superior forces.

Yet Iran’s ability to keep the strait blocked—an act that the United Arab Emirates’s Industry and Advanced Technology Minister Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber has called “economic terrorism” against every nation—doesn’t depend on the country defeating the American expeditionary force. The mere threat of attacks on shipping—or the occasional mine, drone, or missile that reaches a tanker in transit—may be enough for Tehran to achieve its aims. Trump began the war by talking about regime change and eliminating threats from Iran but is now trying to stabilize global energy markets that have been thrown into turmoil by the strait’s closure. The leverage over how the war will end has shifted from Washington to Tehran, and Trump is displaying new interest in negotiating with the regime.

https://archive.ph/mszCO/again#selection-789.0-797.33

During the Vietnam war, body counts were used to prove that America was winning. Now it's counts of what America and Israel have blown up. As is repeadedly pointed out by experts in asymmetric warfare, all that the conventionally weaker party has to do to triumph is to survive and not make serious concessions.