Operation Roaring Lion enters a more uncertain phase

Two weeks into Operation Roaring Lion, Shifra Jacobs and Ezra Taylor say the conflict has moved into a more uncertain and more dangerous phase, with major questions still hanging over Iran’s regime, its nuclear program and the possibility of a broader regional escalation.

There is something disorienting about living inside a war that, on paper, is going well.

Israel has struck more than 5,500 targets inside Iran. Iranian warships have been sunk. Missile-launch rates have fallen sharply from day one. By most battlefield metrics, this campaign is proceeding as planned.

And yet, when the sirens go off in the middle of the night — and they still do — none of those numbers seem to matter very much.

Two weeks ago, serious people thought this might be over quickly. That reading, it is now clear, was optimistic. What began as a campaign focused on Iran now risks becoming something far wider, with Hezbollah's opening of a full northern front arguably the most significant development of the past week.

Then there is the uncomfortable arithmetic of what victory is actually supposed to look like. Hezbollah still exists. The Houthis remain active. Reports of mines in the Strait of Hormuz raise fears of consequences that stretch well beyond the region. And Iran's nuclear stockpile, the original source of so much of this, has not been definitively resolved.

Public support for the operation remains high as Israel enters week three. But support for a war and a clear definition of what you are trying to achieve are two different things.

Does this conflict leave the region meaningfully safer? Does it weaken Iran's regime in a way that lasts? We are two weeks in. Nobody knows yet.

In the end, the episode returned to a single unresolved question: what counts as victory?

As Israel heads into the third week of the war, Taylor said public support remains high, but the meaning of success is still being contested. For both hosts, the answer appears to depend not only on military gains, but on whether the conflict leaves the region safer, weakens Iran’s regime in a lasting way and offers civilians a future that feels more stable than the one they have now.