On Monday President Donald Trump said the U.S. and Israel have "won" the war in Iran in "many ways but not enough," in a statement followed by another night of intense bombing of Iranian cities.
At a Pentagon news conference on Tuesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the most intense attacks are yet to come.
"Today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran — the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes," Hegseth said.
Over the first 10 days of the war there were more than 3,000 air strikes against targets in Iran, the Pentagon said.
Hegseth repeated assurances Tuesday that the power imbalance between Iran and the U.S.-Israel coalition will be the difference in the war.
"We're crushing the enemy in an overwhelming lay of technical skill and military force," Hegseth said. "We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated."
But Jonathan Graubart, a professor and chair of the political science department at San Diego State University who specializes in international relations, isn't convinced force is enough. He said it’s not clear what the military’s objectives are — let alone whether they can be achieved with bombs.
"Even in the Vietnam War, the United States essentially won every battle," Graubart said. "That used to be the old propaganda line that U.S. military and political leaders gave to the American people in the 1960s."
During the Vietnam War, the U.S. dropped twice as many bombs as it did in World War II but did not stop a North Vietnamese victory.
The U.S. also had air superiority over Iraq and Afghanistan. It did not prevent the insurgency or rise of ISIS in the Iraq nor did it stop the Taliban from re-taking power in Afghanistan.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed on the first day of strikes, Feb. 28.
The Iranian regime is facing an existential crisis and the loss of its leader won't be enough to topple it, Graubart said.
He compared the situation to that in Iraq, where President Saddam Hussein was quickly deposed in that war's early phases.
"To actually create a stable regime, (the U.S.) couldn't really do this in Iraq, right, with a massive ground invasion," Graubart said. "And there Saddam Hussein and his regime was much weaker than the current regime in Iran."
In public statements over the course of the war Hegseth has repeatedly rebuffed comparisons to the war in Iraq.
"This is not Iraq. This is not endless," Hegseth said last week at a news conference.
But neither Hegseth nor Trump have said what the end of the war will look like.
"We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated," Hegseth said Tuesday. "We do so on our timeline and at our choosing."
During an interview on CBS 60 Minutes on Sunday, Hegseth declined to say whether the U.S. was considering sending in ground forces.
"People ask, 'boots on the ground, no boots on the ground, four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, go in?'" Hegseth said. "President Trump knows. I know. You don't tell the enemy. You don't tell the press. You don't tell anybody what what your limits would be on an operation. We're willing to go as far as we need to in order to be successful."
