Thinking about this as a war between two “countries” is, in my opinion, missing a large part of the picture. They would take out Trump if they could.
In a conflict between a democracy and an autocracy, the democracy is usually limited by domestic support, while the autocracy can just continuously reframe the narrative and keep on going pretty much indefinitely. This is true even at an enormous military disadvantage—the authoritarian side can force the democracy to surrender purely by psychology, and this is massively exploitable in the information age.
For example—the (obviously fake) report of a strike on an all-girls school in Iran that keeps circulating for the past 3 days with ever growing casualty counts. These videos are clearly targeting Americans in order to diminish support for the campaign.
Taking out the leader serves both as a very tangible, undeniable “achievement” for the democracy (although even that can be framed as a desired outcome in certain belief systems). It also takes out a significant psychological driving force, as these are usually charismatic, cult personalities.
I mean… The Iranians did try to assassinate Trump.
I’m saying that propaganda efforts are significantly more effective against democracies. Authoritarians receive no penalty for lying, and are less susceptible to lies by their enemy. Their local media is 100% controlled. This is why they lie blatantly all the time—this is their main lever for “winning”, since they have basically zero means of military resistance.
I think martyr death might invigorate people in the short term, but it’s much harder to argue that the war was “won” when your leader died, and the loss of key personalities can be devastating to centralized organizations. Look at Qassem Soleimani—where is Quds force now? Same for Nassralah and Hezbollah’s power in Lebanon.