It cannot be said that the Iranian military establishment achieved remarkable successes, whether at the level of the Iranian navy, which was completely destroyed and sank deep in the Arabian Gulf, or at the level of air defenses and the air force, which disappeared from the screen in the early hours of the war.

As a result of the disappearance of air defenses and the air force, American and Israeli aviation succeeded in "occupying" Iran's skies, particularly over Tehran and major cities from Tabriz and Isfahan to Bandar Abbas and Mashhad. Practically speaking, aside from the incident of shooting down an American F-15 fighter jet south of Isfahan and the subsequent rescue of the pilots, flying over Iranian territory was a leisure trip for both Americans and Israelis alike. All Iranian propaganda will not succeed in changing the humiliating image of the Iranian army and the Revolutionary Guards, which proved for the second time after the 12-day war that Iran's skies were occupied twice in less than a year.

Accordingly, this incident was a tangible test for an American ground campaign aiming to seize vital sites in the sprawling country. This has led many observers to consider the test a very worrying experience for the Iranian regime, especially since Israeli and American drones had previously carried out military operations inside major cities like the capital, Tehran, targeting Basij forces in the streets. However, what caught the attention of observers was that a significant number of these drones were launched from inside Iranian territory, meaning that the Americans and Israelis were able to establish permanent military bases within Iran. This is a serious violation of Iranian national sovereignty and is based on the U.S.-Israeli military superiority over the Iranian military machinery.

Furthermore, the Iranian regime discovered that its missile attacks toward Gulf Arab states did not destabilize these countries, which generally dealt with the threat with high efficiency. Life remained almost normal in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and these countries managed to largely contain the effects of the missile and drone attacks and maintain their political, economic, and social stability, preventing Tehran from achieving the ongoing goals of the attacks, the most prominent of which was spreading chaos by trying to hit these countries' economic infrastructure.

It’s true that the pillars of the Iranian regime consider the failure of the U.S.-Israeli alliance to overthrow the regime a major victory in itself that they believe deserves celebration. Despite Iran’s military, economic, and financial strain, and its skies and land being violated for forty consecutive days, the regime’s survival so far is seen as its greatest achievement. This is the case in Iran: the regime is more important than the country—more important than the air the beleaguered Iranian citizen breathes.