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They Saw it Coming How American military planners anticipated failure in Iran
In mid-February 2026, before the US military initiated the airstrikes that began Operation âEpic Fury,â the National Intelligence Council
(NIC), an agency of the executive branch created to synthesize the
analysis of the USâs 18 intelligence agencies, submitted to the
president a classified report detailing the prospects of an attack on
Iran. This assessment, first reported on in the Washington Post and
subsequently confirmed by the Associated Press, painted a grim picture.
It concluded that an offensive operation launched by the US military
would be unlikely to dismantle the central pillars of the Iranian
government. Assassinating Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei could
backfire, resulting in the consolidation of Iranian military and
political structures and the activation of emergency protocols the
Iranians had been preparing for years. Iranâs domestic opposition was
unlikely to be able to seize power in such a scenario. A limited air
campaign or even a protracted war stood a serious chance of failing to
achieve regime change.
The NIC report was the final warning
in a decades-long, documented history of US military and intelligence
planners predicting grim strategic outcomes in a war with Iran. Official
analysis anticipated every major failure of a potential conflict, from
the brutal arithmetic of interceptor production to the possibility that
Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz. In this piece, weâll trace the
public record of this analysis, and show that it was widely dispersed
and understood within the American military, intelligence, and political
establishments. Weâll rely on primary sources whenever possible,
focusing on pre-war assessments, because failure
is easy to identify in retrospect. Finally, weâll attempt to establish
the mechanism that caused these warnings to go unheeded. (...)
I like this guy Ossoff a lot lately. Tempted to send a few piasters his way.
Oh, and Hegseth gets flustered here why? Because Ossoff asks him if he were truthful. Yeah, that pisses most people off. Not.
Answering historical questions with plans that play to the base will be the legacy of Trump until the majority of Americans decide to hold those elected accountable.
Iran is destroyed. We won. It's the soundbites coming from Trump since very early on.
But....they are killing our soldiers in other countries with weapons? Are they destroyed? Did we win?
"Iran will never have a nuclear weapon" isn't an answer, it's an excuse to avoid the reality to we armed Iran with something far greater than their sunken military and diminished missile capability... we showed them they can hold the world economy hostage, and that we "soft" and "lazy" Americans won't do what's necessary to stop them.
To date, the only winner in the war is Iran.
We (the US) are Scott Farkus, and Iran (ie Ralphy) decided they'd had enough....
