Much has been written about President Donald Trump's alleged lack of clearly defined goals and strategic objectives in the war with Iran. But the more pressing and consequential question has received far less attention: Does the Iranian regime have an endgame at all?

So far, Iran has shown no interest in a ceasefire while doing everything in its diminished power to expand the war across much of the Middle East and beyond — in the process torpedoing the global economy.

The US and Israel have been relatively clear in their war aims, including disabling Iran from making nuclear weapons, reducing Iranian missile threats, degrading Iran's capability to sustain its proxies and creating conditions that enable organic regime change in Tehran.

Iran's goals, on the other hand, are less clear. Ayatollah Khamenei talked tough at the start of this war, threatening the US with a "strong punch." A message, purportedly by his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not been seen in public since his elevation, rejected any talk of de-escalation and avowed to bring the US and Israel to "their knees."

Almost in the tone of a victor, he dictated conditions for stopping the war, including the payment of reparations for the damage caused, plus a pledge not to attack Iran again.

This sounds like bluster. Neither Israel nor the US nor even other countries in the region have suffered casualties and damage anywhere near that suffered by Iran, and unlike Iran, their leadership remains intact.

Their air defenses are still working while Iran's have been decimated. The US and Israel operate freely in Iranian airspace, striking at will without losing a single aircraft, while the Iranian navy and air force have suffered heavy losses.

Iran's missile stockpile will not last indefinitely, and there is a clear tapering in the intensity of retaliation as its capacity for producing new missiles and drones is substantially degraded. With many missile launchers taken out of service, a war of attrition cannot be a rational goal for Iran.

As the war progresses, Iran's economy will suffer even more. The wealth of Iran has been stashed abroad by its elite, with the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei alone reportedly worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Iran's main allies are Russia and China, neither of which has offered substantial material help to Tehran's war effort. Russia is trapped in its own war, and China's help is invariably linked with demands for family jewels like mines and ports as collateral, in addition to control over revenue streams. In the real world, there is no flying carpet bringing aid to Iran.