For months, Iran’s resilience in its war with two of the world’s most capable militaries has perplexed many politicians and confounded public expectations. Israel and the United States have hit thousands of Iranian targets, systematically destroying much of the country’s military infrastructure and killing many of its top leaders. Yet the Islamic Republic has not only survived but also continued to maintain significant offensive capabilities. To account for this, some have pointed to Iran’s effective deployment of low-cost precise mass weapons, such as the Shahed-136 one-way attack drone. Others have looked at the decentralized and self-replacing nature of the regime itself.

Although these and other factors have played a part, there is a more straightforward reason for Iran’s staying power: the American and Israeli decision to rely on a sustained air and stand-off naval campaign to bring the regime to its knees. This approach did not come out of nowhere. Air supremacy has been the defining tenet of U.S.…