No. of Recommendations: 15
The nuclear weapons are merely a part of it. Iran projects power by
-Its ballistic missile threats
-Its drones
-Its terror proxies
-Its threat to close off the strait of Hormuz
...etc. This is about taking care of all of that.
But you can't "take care of all that." Short- and medium-range ballistic missiles are cheap and relatively easy to build. Drones are even cheaper and easier to build. Terror proxies just cost money and small arms, and the threat to close off the strait of Hormuz can be accomplished with equipment as limited as drones, small and cheap missile launchers, or even just guys in a speedboat.
Nothing we're doing now will address any of those things. They had their ballistic missile threats and drones back online within six months after they were mostly exhausted after the 12 Day War - and nothing we can do is going to prevent them from being able to threaten Hormuz.
If we had a plan and a war goal to invade with ground troops to replace the regime with one friendly to the west, then you might accomplish those goals. But absent regime change, nothing we're doing will accomplish these goals. You can't "take care of" Iran's ability to project power by any of those means you list simply by air power - except during the literal time that we're in the act of bombing them.
It's also a lynchpin of China's middle east strategy and we're currently degrading that part of it to a large extent.
No, we're not. China's middle east strategy has been to get all the countries there to sell it oil. It has pursued that strategy through economic and diplomatic means. Their strategy doesn't depend on Iran's conventional military forces, so degrading Iran's military forces doesn't degrade their strategy. And Iran's going to keep selling oil to China.
