By The New York Post Editorial Board
You’d never know it from media reports, but the Iranian regime is struggling to survive — what’s left of it, anyway.
“A drawn-out war” could have “catastrophic consequences,” screams one New York Times report.
Other outlets claim President Donald Trump fell into Iran’s “trap”’ and he’s now stuck in a war of his own making. We’re doomed!
Step back and look at all the facts.
Yes, Tehran for now has managed to halt shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, pushing up oil prices.
But that’s a tactic of desperation.
Consider: As the United States systematically destroys Iran’s military, Israel is methodically taking out regime leaders, top Revolutionary Guard figures, Basij goons, special police and their command centers.
Tuesday, US forces dropped 5,000-pound bunker buster bombs on “hardened Iranian missile sites” near the Strait of Hormuz, US Central Command reports, targeting anti-ship cruise missiles that threatened shipping there.
In the past few days alone, Israel took out several key figures, including de facto top dog Ali Larijani.
The Times fretted over that, portraying Larijani as a “relative pragmatist,” someone the West could negotiate with — when the guy just oversaw the execution of tens of thousands of innocent Iranians simply for protesting: That’s his idea of “pragmatism.”
The Israeli “regime shrinkage” campaign began with the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneiand numerous other bigs, and marches steadily on: They can’t hide.
US forces have destroyed much of Iran’s Navy, missile and drone stocks, military bases and weapons-manufacturing sites.
Iran can’t even show the world its chosen successor to Khamenei, his son Mojtaba Khamenei, publicly — possibly because he’s dead.
Its missile and drone attacks have waned; it husbands dwindling supplies because every missile launch is quickly followed by the destruction of that launcher.
Anti-regime Iranians are helping Israel and the United States by providing they’re own intel, pointing out key targets.
Defections and desertions are rising. The Wall Street Journal reports several Iranian forces sleeping “in the nook by the stairs” or housing themselves “inside buses” for fear of being struck.
In a call with a Mossad agent, one commander swore “on the Koran” he wasn’t Israel’s enemy and begged the Jewish state to “please come help us” oust the regime, per a leaked phone call.
The deadenders aren’t yet ready to throw in the towel, but their renewed crackdown on dissent is yet another sign of the regime’s fragility.
Indeed, the Islamic Republic now seems destined to fall — even if not by the war’s end; at the least, it will be completely defanged, including the loss of any ability to close the Strait.
It’s like Ernest Hemingway’s description of how you go bankrupt: “gradually, then suddenly.”
The biggest risk to the West now is buying the media hysteria and quitting too soon.
Ignore the media’s hysteria: Iran’s reduced to tactics of desperationhttps://t.co/aT03mDgpFP
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) March 19, 2026