While Iran has inflicted significant damage to U.S. installations in the region and allied infrastructure, the pace of its attacks is plunging and hasn\u2019t come close to its original plan for fighting off an existential threat to the regime with overwhelming retaliation, it pointed out.<\/p>\n
For example, drone attacks on the United Arab Emirates collapsed from 332 on the second day of the war to just six on Sunday. Ballistic missile attacks fell from a peak of 137 on the first day to four yesterday.<\/p>\n
The U.S.-Israeli bombardment has destroyed hundreds of Iranian launchers, and its missile force troops are reportedly demoralized, deserting, and refusing orders,\u00a0according to ISW.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome individual drones have penetrated air defenses and caused politically unacceptable damage to oil infrastructure, but the overall trend in attacks is overwhelmingly positive,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also little to no evidence the reduced pace of attacks is due to Iran keeping projectiles in reserve to be used later when the U.S. and Israel will have fewer interceptors, the report said.<\/p>\n
Such a tactic would be a major gamble that assumes Iran will still have enough launchers left in the future. It also assumes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps retains enough command and control to execute that kind of coordination after the relentless targeting of its leadership.<\/p>\n
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ISW also noted the last Iranian attack on merchant shipping was on March 11, though it\u2019s unclear whether that was due to less traffic in the Strait of Hormuz or the degradation of Iran\u2019s military capabilities.<\/p>\n
Of course, Iran\u2019s plan was never to defeat the U.S. military, with the focus instead on causing political and economic pain, ISW said. Indeed, soaring crude prices have already made gasoline more expensive, threatening higher inflation and public backlash ahead of U.S. midterm elections.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s strategy rests on inflicting damage in the Gulf, disrupting shipping, activating proxies, committing terrorism, and launching cyber attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIran has likely calculated that if these five prongs cause U.S. casualties, drive up oil prices, and impose economic costs on both the US and its Gulf allies, the United States and Israel would make a political decision to end the war without achieving their objectives,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n
ISW expressed confidence the U.S. Navy can reopen the Strait of Hormuz, despite officials describing it as a \u201ckill box\u201d<\/a> filled with potential threats, while adding \u201cthe risk-tolerance of the market will ultimately determine the length of the disruption in the Strait.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Trump has called on other countries to send warships to help escort tankers, even warning NATO failure to help him \u201cwill be very bad for the future<\/a>\u201d of the alliance. But so far, there are no takers.<\/p>\n Despite Iran suffering devastating losses on the battlefield, the burden is still on the U.S. to prevent Iran from using economic and political pressure to turn insignificant tactical moves into strategic successes, ISW warned. Still, Operation Epic Fury is working for now.<\/p>\n \u201cThe available evidence supports the assessment that the combined campaign is achieving its military objectives thus far but is not yet complete,\u201d ISW said. \u201cDeclaring the campaign a failure at this stage is therefore premature. The collapse of Iranian drone and missile attacks\u2014down significantly since Feb. 28\u2014presents a compelling picture that the military campaign is degrading ballistic missile and drone capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n