> destroying much of Iran's military and leadership
Good at hitting targets, terrible at achieving goals. Same as Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over? In terms of resilience, the Iranians are similar, arguably much more so.
> Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over?
Of course not, because that wasn't the goal and would be impossible, because we were recreating the conditions that led to the Taliban taking control in the first place (corrupt and amoral warlords oppressing the populace). Afghanistan's strategic location and suitability for poppy farming and generating dark money flows is why we went in. It was the staging ground for the plans to overthrow "Iraq [...] Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan" (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/9/22/us-plans-to-attack-...). We're still involved in active conflicts in most of those countries.
The US state is so large, that there are different constituencies operating within it. There was certainly a group that wanted the new state to succeed. I don't disagree with much of what you said though.
You're very right, it's important not to forget that hindsight makes the cloudiest things clear. At the time, it seemed as if almost everyone supported the invasion and thought we were taking revenge for 9/11 and liberating the oppressed from a brutal theocracy. It was not until later, sometimes much later, that the facts became apparent. Very few people knew that the Taliban had offered to surrender Bin Laden and hand over Al Qaeda members before the invasion, and almost nobody outside the military knew about what kind of people we were supporting in their stead. Even today when the historical situation is relatively clear I don't think many people have really thought much about the many uncomfortable facts of the opiate/opiod "epidemic" and it's connection to that occupation.
Fort Bragg has been the transit point for most opiates imported to the US in the past 30 years. Cheap illegal opiates in addition to overprescription of opioids made the problem much worse.
Good at hitting targets, terrible at achieving goals. Same as Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc. Were the Taliban destroyed by killing their upper echelons several times over? In terms of resilience, the Iranians are similar, arguably much more so.