Who Won?

Passover has passed over. The guns have fallen silent, at least temporarily. For the first time since Epic Fury (in the U.S.) and Lion’s Roar (in Israel) erupted on February 28, there is space not for complacency, but for stock-taking. The question many are asking is deceptively simple: Who won? Mainstream media is, in many cases, painting this as an Iranian victory because [1] the regime survived and [2] Iran still controls the Straits of Hormuz and with it, the world’s oil flow.

On the surface, the answer should be trivial. War produces numbers. Missiles destroyed. Launchers eliminated. Factories reduced to rubble. Refineries shut down. By those metrics, Iran was pummeled. But if wars were decided by spreadsheets alone, strategy would be trivial. It is anything but.

To understand what was achieved and what was not, it helps to think like a rocket scientist. That is not a metaphor. It is a way of thinking. In engineering, we distinguish between linear and nonlinear effects. The same applies to war.

Linear achievements are the ones everyone understands. Destroying missiles means fewer missiles can be fired. Knocking out launchers reduces operational tempo. Eliminating factories constrains replenishment. These effects are direct, measurable, and cumulative. The same logic applies to nuclear infrastructure. Key nuclear enrichment facilities, conversion sites, and supporting research and production complexes were damaged or rendered inoperable, disrupting not only current output but the entire upstream and downstream chain required to sustain a weapons program. Highly specialized equipment was destroyed, tacit knowledge was lost with the elimination of personnel, and carefully choreographed processes were broken. By any serious assessment, the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programs, which had become existential threats to Israel, the Gulf States, and Europe, were significantly degraded. This matters. Iran can rebuild, but time is a strategic resource it no longer controls. Reconstitution of nuclear capability is not a matter of pouring concrete and flipping switches; it will take years, not months, and future strikes can reinforce the damage. By these linear measures, the outcome is clear.

Wars, however, are not decided by linear effects alone. The nonlinear objective, regime change, operates under different rules. It cannot be bombed into existence. Regime change emerges only when a society crosses a tipping point, when the cumulative weight of fear, mistrust, and economic hardship gives way to mass defiance and the regime’s coercive tools fail. That tipping point can never be predicted precisely, only prepared for.

Here as well, Epic Fury and Lion’s Roar mattered more than they may appear. Critical elements of the regime’s internal suppression apparatus were systematically targeted. Basij personnel, headquarters, and logistics nodes were struck. The Basij, an IRGC-controlled paramilitary force that enforces regime authority and crushes domestic protest, lost both manpower and mobility. Roadblocks, a staple of population control, were bombed so thoroughly that surviving units were forced to relocate them under bridges, invisible from the air and tactically degraded. At the same time, the regime’s information dominance, the true center of gravity in modern uprisings, was challenged. Having shut down the internet during past unrest, including the bloody suppression of January, Tehran can no longer assume it controls the narrative. It is reasonable to assume that resistance elements, particularly among Kurdish groups, are now better armed and better connected, and that communications resilience may prove more decisive than firepower when the streets fill again.

As of now, there is no regime change. That is not a failure; it is a reality check. After the June 2025 war, it took roughly six months before millions of Iranians took to the streets. This time, the conditions could mature faster. The regime is weaker. Its myth of invulnerability has been destroyed. Its tools of repression have been exposed and, in many cases, neutralized. Nonlinear outcomes unfold on their own timetable. They do not respect press cycles or ceasefire calendars.

In the meantime, the linear results alone justify measured satisfaction. A nuclear threshold state has been pushed back. Missile stockpiles have been reduced. Manufacturing capacity has been shattered. Deterrence has been restored not through declarations, but through demonstrated capability and resolve. Whether the nonlinear outcome follows remains to be seen. But the battlespace has shifted irrevocably. The world today is not perfect, but it is measurably safer than it was before Epic Fury and Lion’s Roar began.

Good things,

Ari Sacher