If something is in range of land based weapons — mines set by small, concealable speedboats or anti-ship missiles — the only way to prevent interdiction is to seize the coastal areas from which such attacks can be launched.
Boots on the ground.
Or persuade the mullahs to renounce martyrdom and play nicely.
Since they won’t do that, boots on the ground.
Why, at this late point, is there not yet an Iranian government in exile, obviously set up and backed by the U.S. but providing a rallying point and transitional government for anti-regime Iranians? If we don’t want American boots on the ground, we will have to recruit, arm, train, and support the Iranian resistance. It will need a base area on Iran’s border. It will then need a controlled area within Iran in which to raise the flag. U.S. airpower can probably secure the bridgehead against the IRGC if there are enough resistance fighters in the trenches, but we would still need 10,000, then 20,000, then 50,000 effective fighters on the ground.
Apparently smuggling arms through the Kurds hasn’t worked. So what next?
There are 7 to 8 million military age men willing to fight to the death for the current government. Any CIA created “government in exile” or boots on the ground would be recognized as the enemy and fought as a attritional war, dragging out over decades. (see Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and on and on). That’s why we don’t do it I’m guessing.