As we approach two weeks of returned American targeting of Iranian military sites, we thought a brief update peeling through the headlines (and the bluster) might be in order.

US Military Vs. Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Following Washington’s dalliance with the Vice President’s best impression of Neville Chamberlain, Iran (predictably) started attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. (predictably) has been responding by targeting Iran’s small, fast attack boats, coastal defenses, missile and drone storage, and air defense systems.

Most recently, Iran has expanded its attacks beyond shipping and has lobbed missiles at American bases and Gulf Arab states in the region, and as a direct result, four U.S. service members have been killed in recent days.

Iran’s consistent escalation of the conflict and the regime’s refusal to abandon its core principle, “death to America, death to Israel,” has led to the expansion of American aerial attacks to include sites near Tehran.

At this stage in the war, despite the Vice President’s massive, unforced error, which allowed Iran to attempt to regroup and rearm, the Islamic Republic appears to have had its regional power projection significantly degraded. Tehran has also not directly attacked Israel in the current round of fighting — indicating Israel's sustained targeting of regime leadership has imposed a degree of deterrence on the IRGC.

So, Where Do We Stand?

The United States and Iran are fighting over the Strait of Hormuz. For the Islamic Republic, this is a struggle against the “infidel West” — and the fact that Tehran has been reduced to fighting over its last internationally relevant strategic card is itself indicative of who is winning.

One must never forget that the regime has been planning, preparing, and praying for this confrontation since the Islamic Republic first took American diplomats hostage in 1979. Thus, it should come as no surprise that Israeli intelligence has revealed that Tehran moved thousands of centrifuges hundreds of feet underground to a facility called Pickaxe Mountain. It is likely that Iran has moved other elements of its nuclear program as well. It is equally likely that American satellites and Israeli intelligence are tracking the same.

In short: Iran never abandoned its desire to set the world ablaze, and all evidence indicates it never will. What the current campaign has demonstrated, however, is that a well-executed, air-oriented military campaign can substantially limit the IRGC's access to what it needs to pursue its goals.

Reason for Optimism

This week's meeting between President Trump and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Washington provides reason for cautious optimism — and not only as it relates to Lebanon and the disarmament of Hezbollah (though perhaps that too).

Israel's operations in Gaza, specifically in Rafah, demonstrated a strategy aimed at eliminating a terrorist force from an urban environment while dramatically limiting civilian casualties — a balance that has eluded Western generals for decades.

By applying a similar approach to southern Lebanon — where the local population is far less committed to the terrorist force in its midst than Gaza — Israel has handed Beirut a breathtakingly rare opportunity to exercise sovereignty over its own territory without a civil war. Israel is doing the hard part first.

What is Israel's underlying strategic imperative? Simple: they must win because Israel has experienced the unthinkable alternative.

Israel cannot withdraw from Gaza or Lebanon on an arbitrary timetable. The Jewish state understands — regardless of where one sits on Jerusalem’s Zionist political spectrum — that if left to their own devices, Israel's enemies would repeat the October 7 Massacre until they had achieved their stated objective: annihilation.

Washington may finally be internalizing that the same logic applies to Iran, with one critical difference: unlike Gaza, and unlike southern Lebanon, the Iranian people are on our side. There are approximately 90 million Iranians. A people who’ve been imprisoned, tortured, and treated as disposable goods by their own government for nearly half a century. They are the indispensable factor — because, like the Israelis forced to engage in Gaza and Lebanon, the Iranian people have no other choice. They must win.

Want to reduce oil prices for more than a few weeks? Want to lift travel warnings for Americans abroad? Want to end the reign of terror attempting to strangle the world’s economy? Then accept what we’ve argued for months: there is a time for war and a time for peace, and now is the time to maintain pressure on Iran. No breaks, no respites, and no capitulations.

Sincerely,

The CUFI Action Fund