It's been discussed for decades that the US would run out of precision munitions in any multi-week conflict. The presumption was that the US would either be in a nuclear war at that point, or a ground campaign would complete the task along with dumb munitions.
That the US decided to expend it's precision weapon stockpile on a conflict of choice with no ground or dumb bombing campaign to fallback on is a mystery for later generations. It is not unbelievable that Iran is capable of blocking a dumb bombing campaign indefinitely, or that the viable targets for such a campaign are politically untenable.
> That the US decided to expend it's precision weapon stockpile on a conflict of choice with no ground or dumb bombing campaign to fallback on is a mystery for later generations.
There is no mystery. A dumb bombing campaign requires air superiority, and Iran actually has reasonable anti-air defense. They're not a bunch of guys running around with AK-74s.
The US absolutely can achieve that. But it _will_ result in aircraft losses, and it requires detailed planning. Both of these are not acceptable anymore.
> Iran actually has reasonable anti-air defense. They're not a bunch of guys running around with AK-74s.
To help put that in perspective versus Iraq: Iran's GDP today is a ~7x stronger than Iraq's was (in 2003) relative to the US GDP at each time. In other words, bigger economy, better-equipped military.
Plus having ~2x the population, and ~3x the land area.
That the US decided to expend it's precision weapon stockpile on a conflict of choice with no ground or dumb bombing campaign to fallback on is a mystery for later generations. It is not unbelievable that Iran is capable of blocking a dumb bombing campaign indefinitely, or that the viable targets for such a campaign are politically untenable.