The thing is, as I understand it, is every function has four designated replacements and a process for the replacements replacement in the scenario all four people are lost. Every military unit has autonomous instructions they carry out without central command.

Israel has been assassinating people for decades. They’re aware that the strategy would be this one. They’ve designed an organizational structure that’s not dependent on individuals. That’s why you see a lot of the senior leaders have had very varied roles over the years - like wildly so. No one in their organization is indispensable, and the supreme ayatollah is a title not a person. They elected his son in coma as a message that the person isn’t relevant, it’s a symbolic role with invested power in the role not the person.

There’s no reason to believe assassinating individuals will achieve very much. It has not seemed to slow them down an iota so far, and I think at this point we have done enough personal damage to their leadership that there is no way to end the war. Even if we stop, it will go one through terrorism and proxy wars at a greater clip than ever before. Only an invasion will work, and I suspect that would be next to impossible to succeed at.

I do not think the US will win this. If we had had a plan, had enlisted allies, had prepared perhaps. But Trump just thought this was like Venezuela and YOLO’ed not realizing it’s not a dictatorship there.