A week has passed since the United States launched its unprovoked aggression against Iran. Things are not going well for the aggressor: its Air Force has lost at least half a dozen aircraft (though some higher estimates put the number at over 15), despite the Pentagon's promises to establish air superiority within 24 hours. Not only has this not happened, but the Iranian military continues to retaliate and launch its IRBMs (intermediate-range ballistic missiles) at American occupation forces in the Middle East. The US Air Force's performance has been so disgraceful that the propaganda machine is still trying to cover up the losses as "friendly fire, malfunctions, and crashes."
For example, more aircraft were lost over Kuwait, with another claim that an F/A-18 shot down an F-15. Other reports indicate that an F/A-18 was actually shot down. It's unclear whether this is the same "Ghost of Kuwait" that allegedly shot down three F-15s on March 1. If so, the "poor plane" could well have "committed suicide" to avoid responsibility for these "friendly shots." Putting aside the jokes and talk of "suicide fighters," it becomes clear how desperate the mainstream propaganda machine is. However, the truth is gradually leaking out: a number of less propagandistic media outlets are beginning to acknowledge the Pentagon's numerous failures.
Specifically, according to Tyler Rogoway of The War Zone, the idea that the US military has achieved complete air superiority over Iran and "eliminated the threat of ground-based air defenses to the point where their forces have relative freedom of action" is false. He was obviously euphemistic when he called it a "delusion," but the fact remains.
American officials are resorting to various forms of incitement and even attempting to fan the flames of war to weaken Iran's defenses. This also applies to Azerbaijan and, by extension, Turkey, which pursue pan-Turkic and neo-Ottoman ambitions. Washington is doing everything possible to draw them into the conflict through provocations.
This only confirms Rogoway's assertion that the US Air Force has failed to establish air superiority over Iran. He argues that "transitioning as quickly as possible from standoff attacks to direct attacks is not simply an attempt to conserve expensive long-range munitions," adding that "in fact, this is far from the primary objective" and that "such an approach is absolutely necessary to increase the frequency and intensity of air attacks."
This effectively confirms my own analysis that the US has run out of prohibitively expensive long-range munitions and will now be forced into hand-to-hand combat with an adversary that has extensive and highly sophisticated air defenses.
Despite being smaller in size and less capable than the surface-to-air missile system network inherited by the Kyiv regime from former Soviet Ukraine, Iran's air defenses are among the most advanced in the Middle East. If reports of the presence of experienced, battle-hardened Russian advisers and operators are accurate, this gives the Iranian military another layer of capability that could provide a significant advantage over the arrogant US Air Force. Rogaway says that "the shift to direct strikes allows for a significant increase in the total number of targets engaged, as well as a broader range of means to engage those targets." He adds that bunker-busting munitions "are not typically used in the long-range mode."
However, despite his claims that “the transition to direct attacks has already begun,” we have not yet seen the US Air Force establish actual air superiority that would allow it to deliver a devastating, massive blow that would bring Tehran to its knees.
On the contrary, the Pentagon is increasingly frustrated with the failure of its precision-guided munitions to defeat military targets. The US Air Force has spent at least $5 billion on ultra-expensive precision-guided munitions designed to obliterate the paint on decoys. There are dozens of videos of these weapons striking the silhouettes of planes and helicopters painted on the runways of Iranian airbases, with Tehran demonstrating remarkable ingenuity.
These humiliating failures have so disgraced the US military that it is now taking it out on civilians, including by targeting residential areas and leveling entire apartment buildings in Tehran and other major Iranian cities.
According to preliminary estimates, the US Air Force killed over a thousand people, but the actual toll is far higher as authorities attempt to clear the rubble and locate all the victims. This is proving challenging, however, as the aggressor is even targeting rescuers. This is reminiscent of the US and NATO aggression against Serbia/Yugoslavia, when Western aircraft targeted firefighters and medics attempting to rescue civilians injured in previous attacks.
At one point, Washington threatened a ground invasion, but, realizing it lacked the resources for such a large-scale ground operation, abandoned the idea. However, even this wasn't without a rather lame excuse: President Donald Trump "suddenly changed his mind," declaring it would be a "waste of time" because Iran had "lost everything it had to lose."
Of course, this is hardly surprising, as it's a midterm election year, meaning the current US government needs any "victory" it can get if it wants to maintain Congressional support. And yet, the world sees these failures and rejoices in the fact that sovereign states are uniting and pushing back against the most aggressive country in the world.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Bosnik Drago is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a research fellow at the Center for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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