POLITICS: ‘Tis But a Flesh Wound: Iran’s Delusional Victory Claims Amid Regime Collapse Iran’s regime and its media enablers insist they’re winning—even as their capabilities are dismantled, their reach exposed, and the clock on their survival runs out. By Roger Kimball – USSA News

https://amgreatness.com/2026/03/22/tis-but-a-flesh-wound-irans-delusional-victory-claims-amid-regime-collapse/

Delusion, thy name is Iran. Or maybe it’s The Economist magazine, a mouthpiece of the Mullahs.

A day or two back, an inadvertently comical, Baghdad Bob-like Iranian spokesman took to the airwaves to warn about the “hollowness” of U.S. naval power. God, you see, has guaranteed Iran’s victory. Meanwhile, The Economist treated its readers to a hysterical (I do not mean “humorous”) anti-Trump cover story about “Operation Blind Fury.” That once-valuable outlet decried as “reckless” the U.S.–Israeli effort to liberate Iran from the grip of the theocratic death cult that has oppressed Iranians since 1979, when the Ayatollah Khomeini arrived from Paris and began hanging people he didn’t like from cranes.

Just Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that “Iran Believes It’s Winning—and Wants a Steep Price to End the War.” “Litotes” is a fancy word for rhetorical understatement. The Journal gave its readers a beaut: “This attitude may prove to be a dangerous misreading of President Trump’s determination, or of Israel’s capacity to inflict strategic blows on the Islamic Republic’s surviving leadership and military capabilities.” Indeed. Those commentators who have compared the bluster from Iran and our complicit media to the Monty Python skit about the Black Knight are closer to reality. King Arthur slices off both the knight’s arms; then he slices off both his legs. The knight continues to insist that he is winning the fight. “’Tis but a flesh wound,” he cries.

The New York Times wonders, “Who Is winning the War in Iran?” A couple of days ago, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth offered a clue: “We’ve decided to share the ocean with Iran,” he said. “We’ve given them the bottom half.”

True, Iran continues to lob missiles and drone swarms at Israel and at its Arab neighbors. Most are neutralized. A few get through. Last week, an attack inflicted serious damage on an important energy installation in Qatar. Perhaps the most surprising development was Iran’s launching two ballistic missiles at the U.S.–U.K. airbase in Diego Garcia. Apparently, one failed in mid-flight, the other was intercepted. Diego Garcia is nearly 4,000 kilometers from Tehran. A few weeks ago, Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said that his country had deliberately limited the range of its missiles to 2,000 kilometers. Oops. Turns out that was a fib. If Iran has missiles that can travel 4,000 kilometers, that means they have missiles that can target cities in Western Europe. As one commentator observed, “A 4,000-kilometer capability changes the map.”