alt Hacker News> destroying much of Iran's military and leadership
Good at hitting targets, terrible at achieving goals. Same as Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over? In terms of resilience, the Iranians are similar, arguably much more so.
> Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over?
Of course not, because that wasn't the goal and would be impossible, because we were recreating the conditions that led to the Taliban taking control in the first place (corrupt and amoral warlords oppressing the populace). Afghanistan's strategic location and suitability for poppy farming and generating dark money flows is why we went in. It was the staging ground for the plans to overthrow "Iraq [...] Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/9/22/us-plans-to-attack-...). We're still involved in active conflicts in most of those countries.