https://www.rediff.com/news/column/neit ... 260323.htm
Neither Israel Nor Iran Wants A Quick End To The War
T T Ram Mohan, March 23, 2026
Everybody is asking about the war in Iran: How long will it last? Equally important is the question: How will it end?
We don't have definitive answers yet. What we do know is that the answers the United States and Israel had when they initiated the conflict two weeks ago have turned out to be patently incorrect.
President Donald Trump has not got the quick, decisive victory he wanted. The Iranian government has not imploded following the killing of its supreme leader and around 40 senior leaders.
The people of Iran have not risen in revolt. The Iranian leadership is in no mood to give Mr Trump the 'unconditional surrender' he has demanded.
Even on the strictly military dimension, the war has not turned out as the US and Israel had expected. On March 7, a week into the war, Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, made an astonishing statement.
Ms Leavitt told reporters that the US was 'on track to achieve air superiority and control over Iran's airspace.'
The statement was astonishing because we had all been led to believe much earlier that Iranian air defences had been wiped out.
That American and Israeli aircraft were dropping missiles and bombs at will from the skies over Iran.
Two days before Ms Leavitt made her statement, Israel's Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir had announced that 80 per cent of Iran's air defences had been destroyed and Israel had achieved 'almost complete air superiority over Iran'.
Larry Johnson, a former Marine officer whose blog on military matters is widely followed, provides an insight into what's going on.
He says that the US and Israeli planes are flying close to Iran's western border and delivering missiles with a range of anywhere between 370 km and 980 km.
That is not quite the same as having dominance of Iran's skies. It is one reason why the war is stretching out longer than thought.
It is hard to tell how long the war will go on because we lack clarity about America's objectives. President Trump and his colleagues have cited different objectives at different times.
Eliminating Iran's nuclear weapons (already 'obliterated' last June). Crippling Iran's ballistic missile capability.
Ending Iran's support for proxies in West Asia. Liberating the people of Iran from a theocratic regime.
Regime change, which could mean a set of leaders (even if theocratic) that are kinder to the US and Israel.
Any combination of these objectives will take longer than the four to six weeks that most analysts have been talking about.
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Gautam
