I agree, it's a real conundrum, unless you factor in the possibility that oil disruption was part of the game plan, or maybe even the main goal, rather than an unfortunate side-effect of "curbing the threat of Iran".

I think Tucker put it very well when he said that Iran, fundamentally is not a military power, but an economic one. This economic power hinges on 3 things:

1) Iran's gargantuan reserves of oil.
2) Iran's western coastline which gives it the ability, even with it's military decimated, to shut down shipping from the other Gulf states.
3) Iran's close trading partnership with China.

I've been lying in bed at night trying to work out what the actual goal of this war is, aside from the marketed version. It rhymes a little with Gulf War 1 (The Papa Bush version), in which the Americans pulverised Iraq's army and then let the regime continue for another 12 years. This could have been the game plan with Iran,  weaken the regime but keep it in place for a while in order to prevent a spiral into a fractured "failed state" which would in reality be far more dangerous to its nieghbours and the world than the revolutionary Theocratic State.

Or maybe it's a crude verison of 1953 all over again? In that case the CIA would have no doubt been heavily involved in attempts to trigger a popular revolt or a coup to be timed perfectly with the air strikes. Maybe that plan failed?

Or maybe that was never the plan? Maybe the plan was to just create an oil crisis.  Why? Maybe that was spun by Trump's advisors as a good way to get leverage over China?

None of this really makes sense, hence my inability to sleep at night.

That's a neat summary you outlined here, it appears, IMHO. 

Those 3 factors you mentioned - indicating the inerent power of Iran  - help to explain how Iran has intelligently harnessed these for an asymmetric strategy to win the war, if indeed the war can be won.  

But there is one word omitted from your analysis that tries to make sense of US goals 

That word is "Israel" 

I guess a fringe benefit of the war (to Israel) is that Israel gets to gobble up half of Lebanon and keep it this time. Not sure how that benefits the US in any way, but there could be a secret reason? Pipeline? Just throwing darts here... 

Yes “throwing darts” is a new figure of speech to me.    I guess it’s synonymous to the expression “connecting the dots”. The trouble is, different observers can connect dots differently.  

I like this Chinese high-school teacher.  He’s a historian & applies “game theory”.   His YouTube channel has apparently gone viral since the controlled demolition of Iran started on 28 Feb. 

https://youtu.be/XKLMx3JLU_g?si=9GS-_p4FA1BDkZv4

Note I think this is just somebody’s smart rendition using AI.  Will park it here to see how it stacks up in 12 months time