Regime change was a side goal but not the main goal, if we cripple them enough to where they dont have anything militarily and there currency is useless we win.
It's honestly surprising that there hasn't been more resistance internally against the regime. I say that because tehran has no water and the economy is completely in shambles because of sanctions (even if you ignore all the military shit).
This doesn't really bode well for the US and Israel because if the regime survives (and it appears it will) they will obviously stage more attacks and likely try to do so "closer to home".
The war is highly asymmetric already. Iran has cheap disposable stones and their own missiles that obviously overwhelm the billion dollar radar systems that exist. At this point it's fairly obvious they could attack aircraft carriers and basically anything.
Many of the attacks don't even cause huge amounts of damage, but even a simple and single drone strike on a military or merchant ship is enough to cause instability.
Insurance companies have already backed out and the boats will not travel because of it. All of these boats also have to be in survey and a bunch of other shit.
The profit margins on merchant container vessels are paper thin - to the extent Maersk (one of the largest shipping companies) downgraded to one ply toilet paper to save money.
I think people have the impression that these boats will just wait a bit and then things will go back to normal but in reality tons of shell companies behind the scenes will go broke and payments on loans will fail. The economic ramifications behind the scenes are just insurmountable and will impact fucking everything and everyone.
This is economic warfare and Iran is winning it. Will they win militarily? Probably not, but they can cockroach themselves to last forever and keep throwing cheap drones at trading boats