💬 "What threat did the children of Minab or athletes from Lamerd pose to US security?" Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asked.

"The most important lesson from the 12-day war is that survivability is very important," Valtersson says. "You must have both a command structure and weapons capability that can survive intense enemy bombardment."

"In general, Iran aims to exhaust the enemy air defense inventory, keep a strike capability when this happens, increase the economic cost for the US and of course survive the onslaught and force [the US] to abandon the war before the political and economic repercussions become too hard to handle."

💬 “We went in there and tried to make a fair deal with them [Iran], and it was very clear that it was going to be impossible probably by the end of the second meeting,” US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News.

💬 “They wanted us to report positivity. It was not positive that meeting,” the US special envoy admitted.

💬 “There is increasing information that the situation is stabilizing, and that Iran’s air defense assets are capable of neutralizing Israeli and US air targets,” notwithstanding the unprecedented nature of the surprise aggression, retired Russian Army Colonel and military expert Andrei Koshkin says.

💬 “We see that Iran’s air defenses continue to carry out their missions,” buoyed by the armed forces’ consolidation over the enemy’s brazen murder of Khamenei, Koshkin said.

💬 “They are ready to fight and to demonstrate capabilities that should make Israel and the US shudder.”

💬 “The whole world has witnessed the barbaric strikes by the US and Israel, who targeted civilian objects and residential buildings,” an Iranian Red Crescent employee told Sputnik.

"The Americans are operating 'off the truck,' [and are heavily dependent] 'on resupply,'" Popov explains.

"This involves massive logistics—lengthy and time-consuming processes. And it’s far from easy to sustain that across an ocean from the American continent."

"I think the advantage will clearly be on Iran’s side," Popov says.

"The calculations might suggest the Americans are in a far worse position than Iran. It’s also worth noting that the Israelis sparked this conflict—and their arsenal is similarly limited and unlikely to last long."