“Today I am at the head of the strongest army in the world, the most gigantic air force, and of a proud navy; we shall only talk of peace when we have won the war,” Hitler boasted in 1940. While moving the American Armageddon in the vicinity of Iran, President Donald Trump was also frothing about the destructive power of the sole superpower in a bid to force Iranian leaders to surrender even before the deluge.

The geography and landmass of Iran, over 1.6 million square kilometres, of which 55 per cent consists of mountains, stand guard over this nation. It borders Iraq and Turkey to the west; Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkmenistan to the north; Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east. With this vast strategic depth, it has not been historically easy to subdue Iran, barring the military expedition of Alexander the Great and the Muslim military campaigns from 633 to 651 AD.

The war in South West Asia has gone into the third week, and there are no signs of a cessation of hostilities anytime soon. Iran’s clerical regime has survived notwithstanding the tragic loss of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the first wave of attacks, with the country’s retaliatory capacity intact and its strategic success to widen and prolong the war.

It has successfully frustrated the enemy’s plans to achieve its war objectives in a short and quick attack, as they had expected. These objectives included regime change, degradation of Iran’s missile production and launch capacity, capture of its enriched uranium, and control over its oil and gas resources.

Firstly, the USA and Israel must have realised that Iran is not a cakewalk. Iran, anticipating their hostility towards post-revolution regimes spanning over four decades, and particularly after the USA’s invasion of Iraq, had designed its........

© The Friday Times