I am very well aware of the disparity in military power between the two sides, but to be honest I’m pretty surprised at what little strategy Iran seem to have in this conflict, beyond “lob drones and missiles at infrastructure in neighbouring countries and hope some of it hits”.
There has been surprisingly little in the way of asymmetrical warfare. No significant cyber attacks. No direct attacks on US interests in other countries (beyond the aforementioned lobbing of drones/missiles in nearby gulf countries). No injection/activation of terror cells into US soil. No successful sneak attacks in the night against US forces. No hostage taking. Nothing.
About the only thing they’ve had going for them is keeping the straight closed. And if the announced peace deal is real and it gets opened up again, then they’ve lost even that. They could likely keep it closed at this point until it really hurts, letting the world know who is ultimately to blame — but if the US administration is to be believed (difficult, I know!) it seems they gave up on even that.
I’m not disappointed (the Iranian regime can fuck right off) — but for a country that has been calling for the “death” of the “great Satan” United States for the last several decades I was expecting some sort of strategy. Tossing missiles around isn’t really “strategy” — and if they tried anything else it was apparently so ineffectual as to be not notable.
All of which makes me wary of the announcement of a “deal” to actually end the war. I half expect Iran is playing games here just trying to drag things out, looking like they’re an honest partner on the world stage, all the while keeping oil flowing as slowly as possible while they wait out stored oil to completely dry out globally.