Preberite, kajti boljše definicije ne boste našli.

Let me explain what winning means here.

The US-Israeli war of aggression was defeated soundly by Iran in March. It was proven beyond reasonable doubt that the US does not have the military means to disarm Iran.

The protracted war of the sieges that has been underway since is about 1 thing and 1 thing alone: will the US accept Iranian authority to control Hormuz?

That is the Iranian ask that the US cannot give; not unless the costs of doing so become prohibitive.

The reason the US cannot give that — why it cannot ‘walk away’ — is that it is tantamount to turning the Persian Gulf into an Iranian lake, as @vali_nasr put it. In effect, Iran would become the regional hegemon of the gulf and a world power in control of half the world’s oil.

This is the Hormuz Question. This is the dispute. Everything else can be negotiated. The war must go on until this fundamental dispute is resolved one way or another. Either Iran must give up this ask and accept free transit, or it must coerce the US into capituation.

The problem, as I have explained at length on Substack and here, is that Iran is unable to impose sufficient costs on the US to capitulate on this question. The reason is very simple. It has lost the Battle of Hormuz, largely on account of state-backed shipper risk appetite. It has lost the game of cat and mouse.

Iran is also rigged to lose a protracted war of the sieges. The costs it is imposing — largely through the Houthis — is well within US tolerance. Unless it escalates to a sustained counterbase campaign, it cannot force the US to capitulate on the Hormuz question.

This is the strategic incoherence of Iranian patience. They will bleed much faster than the Americans. And eventually they will have to seek a decision through a strategic offensive, or capitulate on Hormuz.

The US got lucky. The enemy made a massive strategic error.