Operation Roaring Lion Is Rewriting the Rules of War Against Iran

Operation Roaring Lion, Israel’s ongoing military campaign against the clerical regime in Iran, should not be understood as a short punitive strike or a limited demonstration of force. It is a sustained operation intended to dismantle, layer by layer, the military systems that allow the regime to fight, deter, repress, and survive.

The campaign’s strategic logic is increasingly visible in the pattern of targets. Israeli strikes are not simply reducing launch capacity or destroying isolated assets; they are systematically attacking the command structures, production chains, and defensive architecture that make coordinated Iranian military action possible.

According to Israeli assessments, repeated attacks on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have severely disrupted command-and-control functions. Field commanders are increasingly operating without central coordination, relying on local initiative rather than organized military direction. Israeli operational flexibility now allows real-time targeting of senior figures at ranges of roughly 1,500 kilometers — an unprecedented capability in this theater.

The military-industrial dimension is equally significant. Missile production infrastructure has been hit so extensively that Israeli officials assess Iran currently lacks meaningful reconstitution capacity. Before the war, Iran was estimated to produce roughly 100 ballistic missiles per month. That capacity is now zero.

Air superiority has expanded in parallel. Israeli officials assess that roughly 80 to 85 percent of Iran’s air-defense architecture — including radars, interceptors, and detection systems — has been destroyed, giving Israeli aircraft broad freedom of action across much of Iranian airspace.

Only after that strategic groundwork does the campaign’s scale become fully clear. Since the operation began, approximately 5,700 combat sorties have been flown, with more than 540 strike waves conducted across central and western Iran and dozens more deep inside Iranian territory. Over 12,000 munitions have reportedly been employed, including approximately 3,600 in Tehran alone, generating roughly 8,500 strike points across the country.

What makes those numbers strategically meaningful is that they rest on years of preparation. Before the first strike, Israeli planners built a large operational framework based on expanding intelligence penetration and close coordination with Washington. Many targets struck today were identified only through continuous intelligence development during earlier phases of confrontation.

That preparation was evident in the opening phase, when Israel reportedly eliminated 40 individuals within 40 seconds. That decapitation effort, supported by a major deception operation, was followed immediately by “Genesis,” a massive strike package involving roughly 200 Israeli aircraft attacking launch infrastructure, storage sites, and critical military nodes across Iran. Since then, the campaign has displayed unusual operational flexibility. Israeli sources indicate that roughly one-fifth of sorties change targets after takeoff, reflecting real-time intelligence integration rarely seen at this scale. Structured strike corridors allow simultaneous pressure across multiple distances while preserving tempo.

Its defining feature may be that Israel has sustained this offensive intensity while defending its own skies. More than 90 percent of projectiles launched at Israeli territory have been intercepted, preserving strategic freedom of action and allowing the operation to continue without major loss of momentum. This is no longer simply attrition. It is the deliberate dismantling of the regime’s military nervous system.

Mark Dubowitz is the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from Mark and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow Mark on X @mdubowitz. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.