India, April 3 -- The US-Israel war on Iran is aimed at the destruction of Iran as a regional military power. Thus, it was timed to exploit the Iranian military's supposed vulnerabilities and waning popular support for the ruling dispensation in the Islamic Republic. Now, the US-Israeli campaign is struggling as Iran has unleashed horizontal escalation.

Tehran's objective has been to correct past misperceptions in which restraint was interpreted as weakness and to establish the credibility of its threats. The stakes for Iran involve not just the regime's survival or territorial integrity, but also setting a new strategic equation, under which the costs for attacking Iran are raised not just for the US and its regional partners but also f...