> I mean, the Iranian regime has had one goal the whole war: survive.
No it wasn't. If Iran's only goal is to survive then it would have made peace with the USA and surrounding Middle Eastern territories decades ago.
This whole war is happening because Iran had great political ambitions than just thriving on its own.
Iran has been funding proxy terrorist groups for a long time now, specifically because it is trying to achieve larger goals than just surviving.
And on those fronts, well those proxy groups have taken a ton of damage and aren't long for this world.
This whole war is happening because after his easy coup in Venezuela, Trump thought he could just do it again in Iran, and now he can't extricate himself without losing face. And American politicians on both sides of the aisle are subserviant to Israel.
Their goals are to survive and control the strait of Ormuz. And they will do both because eventually the US will pull out, because to try to hold the strait is a financial drain. Just like Afghanistan. So it's a waiting game and everyone knows Iran will win. Orange man can say he won every day and after a year, 5 years, 10 years, 50 years eventually the US will have to admit defeat.
> Their goals are to survive
As I just said before, if this was their only goal, they could have had it decades ago by choosing peace instead of funding proxy milita groups en mass.
The fact that they fund all they proxy groups shows that actually yes they have other goals beyond surviving (They they are quickly failing to achieve as their proxy groups get dismantled), and they are actually willing to risk war and risk their survival to attempt to achieve them.
Quite the contrary. It doesn't matter what Iran does: their crime is existing without being under the control of the US. The US installed a puppet regime in Iran in 1953, and had a powerful vassal in the middle east, close to the Soviet Union. They freed themselves in 1979, gaining control of their own resources, and the US never forgave them for it. The only way the US would have allowed them to go on existing without attacking would be for them to become slaves again.
You're forgetting that a perfectly serviceable truce was established with the JCPOA until Trump tore it up to satisfy Israeli interests.
They did make peace with the US. It was a whole thing, papers were signed, agreements were made, they pinky-promised to not make nukes, everyone walked away happy. Except the Israelis, who don't like their regional power status being challenged, and apparently Trump, who... didn't like that the Iranians gave up on their nuclear armament program?
Either way, the US and Iran were at peace right up until we decided to pull out of our disarmament treaty with them. And then executed a decapitation strike against them.
> Iranians gave up on their nuclear armament program?
They never gave up. The plan was always to lie and get sanction relief from the West, in order to to sell oil and fund Islamist terrorism throughout the region and the world. It isn't only about the nukes. Fundamentally, this is about containment of a dangerous anti-Western ideology. Same thing in Cuba.