‘Black rain’ covers the sky over Tehran due to US attacks while Iran begins to mine the Strait of Hormuz

“Nothing will be left standing in Tehran,” an Iranian citizen told the BBC, as shells continue to fall across the country for the eleventh consecutive day and the ‘black rain’ caused by the bombing of oil refineries soaks the city.

To date, Israel and the United States have hit more than 3,000 targets and sunk 51 warshipseffectively ending, according to the White House, the functionality of the Iranian Navy.

Yes, around 80% of the small and medium-sized vessels are still standing, which, according to CNN, could be dedicated to undermining access to the Strait of Hormuz to avoid the passage of oil tankers.

Control of commercial passage is key to moderating crude oil prices and, therefore, general inflation, one of Trump’s great promises during the last election campaign.

For this reason, the American president has taken the issue personally.

If on Monday he assured that he was willing to escort the oil tankers, this Tuesday he stated the following on his social network Truth: “If Iran has placed any mines in the Strait of Hormuz – and we have no evidence that they have done so – we want them removed IMMEDIATELY.”

“If for any reason mines have been placed and they are not removed immediately, the military consequences for Iran will be at a level never seen before. If, on the contrary, they remove what could have been placed, it will be a big step in the right direction,” he said.

After a few minutes, Trump announced on the same platform that, in the last few hours, the United States had “attacked and completely destroyed 10 vessels with inactive mines, and more will follow!” Later, the US Central Command claimed to have destroyed “multiple Iranian warships” near the Strait of Hormuz, including 16 minelayer ships.

However, it is also not clear that mining the strait through which 20% of world trade passes will be a major impediment to circulation.

According to Gregory Brewan analyst at the Eurasia Group, “the mines are a bit of a smokescreen.”

“Yes, Iran can place them and yes, they make navigating the strait extremely dangerous. But, unlike drones, mines do not move. And the US Navy has ships capable of detecting and clearing them,” Brew noted.

“We are still in the ‘threaten and disrupt’ phase of the conflict,” he added.

Death threats

In any case, what seems clear is that the Iranian regime is not willing to give in to anything Washington demands of it.

Ali Larijanihead of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, threatened Trump on Tuesday after the US president stated that the new supreme leader, Mojtab Jamenei“I shouldn’t sleep peacefully.”

Larijani’s response came in X, where he assured that Iran was not afraid of his “empty threats” and warned him: “Be careful, don’t be the one who disappears.”

Trump’s head has had a price in Tehran since 2020, when he ordered the assassination of the general Qasem Solemainicommander in chief of the Quds Force.

In 2024, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard sent the Pakistani Asif Raza Merchant to organize an attack against the then Republican candidate.

Merchant was arrested in July of that year and is being tried in federal court in Brooklyn.

Both the public threats and the decision itself to choose the son of Ali Jamenei as successor to the late leader despite warnings from the White House, they make it clear that Iran is not willing to reach any agreement.

From time to time, it is leaked from Washington that it is, but there is no evidence of this. Iran is into all-out war and fomenting military and financial chaos to put America’s allies on edge.

From what we have seen previously with Hamas and Hezbollah, the two large terrorist militias dependent on Iran, we cannot expect any other path than resistance no matter who falls.

Hamas remains in power in Gaza despite having lost all its leaders and having suffered intense bombing for more than two years.

Hezbollah, greatly diminished in Lebanon, remains at war with Israel, despite everything. No surrender can be expected from the Tehran regime.

How to verify the defeat?

In this context, Trump chose this Monday to introduce the term “definitive defeat” as a moment to end the war, something that is not very clear what it means.

In the words of the White House, this would be the moment when Iran “runs out of missiles, without factories that can build them, and without laboratories or uranium to enrich, making it impossible for it to manufacture a nuclear weapon.”

The problem is how this is verified, beyond propaganda. Trump already said he had “annihilated” the Iranian nuclear program just nine months ago. It turns out that it wasn’t true.

The non-definition of an objective serves to be able to choose at any time, according to your convenience, when the end of the war has arrived and, of course, declare yourself the absolute winner.

This is what is happening with Russia in Ukraine, which came in to change the regime and “liberate” the Russian speakers and has ended up celebrating the specific seizures of small villages in the Donetsk region as overwhelming victories.

It also happened with Israel, which never really knew why it bombed Gaza so viciously nor is it clear now why it has stopped doing so: the same terrorists who, from their different ranks, collaborated in the 7-O massacre continue to govern in the Strip.

The IDF entered and left major cities several times without visible results.

The only thing that has been achieved is the formation of a Peace Board that seems more interested in building resorts near the Mediterranean than in explaining how it is going to put an end to the terrorists, their tunnels, their repression on the Palestinian people and their constant threat to their neighbors.

“Great success”

The United States is following a similar pattern. At a press conference, the White House communications chief, Caroline Leavittinsisted again on the “great success” of the North American army and that “military objectives are being met at a greater speed than expected.”

What no one has fully explained is what the non-military objectives are: we know that the United States can destroy Iran with bombs as Israel did with Gaza, but can it solve the root problem, in this case, the nuclear threat?

Leavitt stated that, in these almost two weeks of war, Iran had reduced the launch of ballistic missiles by 90% and that of drones by 85%.

The CENTCOM data is even more compelling.

On Sunday, March 1, the second day of the war, Iran launched 520 ballistic missiles and 850 drones.

On March 9, there were 40 and 60 respectively, a reduction that in both cases is close to 95% and which indicates, in effect, that the military superiority of the US and Israel is absolute, something that we had already imagined in the operation Midnight Hammer June.

The issue is what to do with that superiority.

Leavitt insisted that the goal was for Iran to never have a nuclear bomb, but again did not explain how this can be achieved without a regime change.

The current one is full of religious fanatics who hate the West and who have a network of alliances with Russia and China that will allow them to rebuild the country in a relatively short time. Is the United States going to repeat this operation every nine months to start over from scratch?

Diffuse “unconditional surrender”

Asked how much time exactly remains in this war – the markets have reacted with joy to Trump’s optimism and crude oil fell this Tuesday to 84 dollars per barrel compared to 95 just a couple of days ago – Leavitt was again ambiguous.

He said the original idea was “four to six weeks,” but that things were going even faster.

Now, he once again left it in Trump’s hands to decide that the victory was complete and that Iran was in a situation of “unconditional surrender… whether they recognize it or not.”

There is a certain perversion of terms here. Surrender requires recognition. No one can give up for another.

Even if they have no missiles, no drones, no platforms from which to send them, no active oil wells, no military construction factories, no energy plants… if the ayatollahs hold on to power, the problem will still be there.

In other words, neither the defeat will be definitive nor the surrender will be definitive, even if the credibility of the threats is reduced.

It is necessary to support the opposition movements to overthrow the regime and that is why the Kurds were tested at first. The problem is that these opposition movements, as Trump himself acknowledged on Monday, are too uncoordinated.