He very clearly thought he could just take out the supreme leader and Iran would ultimately appoint a servile replacement that'd kiss his ass.

That's why this has gone so wrong. He can't articulate further goals because he didn't expect this to be anything other than a 10 day conflict with Iran begging for the US to stop punishing them.

That is to say, he accomplished his objective on day one, but that didn't produce the results expected. And now because everything is fucked, he keeps escalating because if he pulls back now it will be a clear loss. We are basically fighting a war now because a narcissist can't admit he fucked up.