If Washington’s participation in Israel’s June 2025 war with Iran elevated U.S. military force to a perfectly viable instrument of the United States’ Iran policy, the success of current talks would signal the formal undoing of that logic. But should the failure of talks pave the way for another full-scale war, the United States and Israel will be fighting an Iran vastly different from June. For the Iran of today appears to have made its peace with the grim conclusion that while a decisive slog with Israel and the United States is sure to be agonizing, it is preferable to the recurring attrition of repeated wars and a chronic strategic vulnerability that only emboldens adversaries to target Iran and its regional allies.
The US is massively overextended in the region. And has limited platforms to deploy power from. Just as you say the US would first target Iranian launch capacity, Iran would first target US regional platforms, including the incredibly vulnerable carriers. Iran already demonstrated it can bypass missile defenses. The Houthis already demonstrated that they can threaten naval assets. Iran will target airfields and carriers first and those US bombers are going to have a hard time finding a place they can land.