if they learned from obama that making a state fail gets them pretty much the result they want without all the annoyance and cost of a stay-behind mission. so in those terms, supposing that's what their actual goal is (since "regime change" in Iran is basically off the table), i can't entirely disagree that the "problem" with dubya neocons was the idea that they had to stick around after to try to clumsily prop up an entirely u.s. backed regime.

of course, the real problem for jd vance and the gang is that the Islamic Republic is not nearly so fragile a state apparatus as the ones they've gotten used to fucking with. i mean, Iran essentially planned ahead of time for Khameini to be martyred in this way: he wasn't in a bunker, he was just at home with his family. he was also an 86 year old man. the IRGC is significantly more independent than most western analysts that aren't military guys in the room giving trump options will admit. it's not the case of course that the Islamic Revolution is a universally popular form of governance within Iran; but it is the only one with real institutions, and there is a significant proportion of the country that does genuinely believe in the project. even moreso, the u.s. and the zionists have bombed opposition leaders; it's pretty clear that they're attempting to make the state fail. the best case scenario to the zionists and the u.s. is essentially Shi'a "super ISIS" and this seems very unlikely to me. all that said, mass casualties of amerikkkan soldiers and zionist civilians will start to make the calculus here much different than it currently is.