On Saturday, Israeli and American forces launched an aerial attack on Iran, hitting military targets as well as regime targets. President Trump told the Iranian people to take the opportunity to overthrow the mullahs and free themselves. This seems like a campaign to weaken Iran by tearing up their leadership, conventional capabilities, and nuclear infrastructure; while giving Iranian resistance to the mullahs the opportunity to exploit our ability to kill mullah people and things. We don’t know what the campaign will achieve yet, as I commented early.
Iran has been at war with America ever since the Islamic Revolution, starting with the seizure of the American embassy and continuing to today with terror and hostage-taking for profit. What part of "Death to America"--a.k.a. the "Great Satan"--has been unclear? While America has intermittently fought back, only now is the objective seemingly to crush the mullah regime. Or it is the Iran Punitive Mission?
Mission and Capabilities
While America (and presumably Israel) would like the Iranian people to defeat the mullahs by exploiting our attacks on the regime, America is seemingly not tying our operations to their success, per the president:
“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations,” he said.
We will strike to weaken Iran's government. The Iranian people will win or lose their parallel struggle. And we will end our strikes, hoping the Iranian people will defeat the mullah regime (now or eventually); but accepting a more narrow short-term victory that weakens Iran's military and governing capabilities. We will then wait for future opportunities to remove or neuter the Iranian mullah regime.
We shall see if an intended short but glorious--or at least a short and useful--air war against the mullah regime pans out. The enemy gets a vote, of course, as I wrote about in this Land Warfare Paper about Iraq's ground invasion of Iran in 1980:
We must not underestimate our potential foes as the Iraqis did in 1980. They will be clever just as we are. They will believe in the cause for which they are fighting. And they, too, will fight to win. We cannot assume that the sight of an American soldier will panic our enemy and induce retreat and surrender in the same manner that Iraq thought the Iranians would collapse when confronted with Iraq's overwhelming invasion force.
There are limits to what an air campaign can achieve on the ground. Air power is great for flying over a land to kill people and break things. It is the modern version of cavalry sweeping through enemy territory burning and slashing their stuff. But while aircraft and missiles may fly over the ground freely in a very successful campaign, they cannot control the ground.
And as an aside, even sea power (that in this case is supplementing the land-based air power) is limited. The bulk of a sustained air campaign must be done from and sustained from the ground. As our fight against the Barbary pirates revealed, a threat on the ground to the regime inflicts more fear than bombardment and blockade. I wrote about that in Army magazine ... last century.
How I'm so old yet so good looking is a miracle.
But I digress.
And even a conventional ground campaign is no guarantee of success. Ask the Iraqis about how well there's went in 1980, as I discussed in this even older Land Warfare Paper. There are only limited ground missions that America (or our allies) can do to affect ground control in this campaign.
Twenty years ago I described all the target sets we need to hit in something that is more than a one-off strike for a narrow target set (like the strikes last summer on Iran's nuclear facilities), and I concluded about that hypothetical strike:
This looks an awful lot like a war and not just a clean airstrike. Which is why my preference is to support internal forces for regime change. Lots, if not most, Iranians hate their government. But my first preference may not be possible. Either from our inability or from the lack of a determined internal opposition ready to fight for their future.
But when the alternative to what I've described is letting Iran go nuclear, a war by any other name is downright ideal.
America and Israel Strike
Much depends on the ground in Iran. Are the Iranian people willing to fight to remove the mullah boot from their neck? And on the other side, what is the ability of Iranian security assets to remain united and their willingness to kill Iranians? Do we have knowledge of weakness and splits that we can push into the open?
I assume efforts--mostly by Israel--have been made to organize internal opposition, with smuggled Starlink terminals only the most open support; and to disrupt the Revolutionary Guards and explore the willingness of regular Iranian military forces to side with the people against the Revolutionary Guards.
The American attacks in the first 24 hours included command and control, Revolutionary Guard headquarters, air defense systems, ballistic missile sites, Iranian navy ships and submarines, anti-ship missile sites, and communications. These targets made the initial focus on the ability of the Iranians to resist the American and Israeli attacks. The top Iranian, the Ayatollah Khamenei, and numerous others leaders died in air attacks.
Adding insult to injury, America used its reverse-engineered version of Iran's cheap Shahed suicide drone in the attack. Last December I noted that America sent that LUCAS weapon to CENTCOM. Army surface-to-surface missiles were part of the strikes.
It's early so I don't know what the Israeli targets are. Given past experience, I'd assume they are more focused on Iranian ballistic missile and offensive drone sites; as well as air defenses and command and control. But ISW reports this generally after one day:
The combined US-Israeli force has struck over 2,000 targets in Iran and achieved air superiority over Tehran. The combined force has continued to target Iranian internal security institutions responsible for maintaining stability and suppressing protests, including security forces along Iran’s northwestern borders with Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan.
Combined with the CENTCOM target description, this may suggest the Israelis may have been initially more focused than we were on Iranian internal security capabilities. Perhaps because the Israelis have more communication with dissidents, separatists, and insurrectionists. But I'm speculating. This is interesting in that light:
Specifically, it seems that Israel’s mission was decapitation while Washington’s seemed more bent on destroying offensive missiles and drones.
Six Americans have been killed by Iranian attacks on land-based American troops near Iran; and in a friendly fire incident three American F-15E strike aircraft were shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses. Luckily all six crew ejected and survived (from CENTCOM).
Deconfliction procedures must be tightened up in Kuwait's role in shooting down Iranian ballistic missiles aimed at our bases in Kuwait.
Iran's missile attacks on the territory of neighboring Arab countries has been weak, but enough to stiffen their apparent lukewarm attitude toward taking on Iran in this campaign. Unless their public reticence was either out of caution or for misleading the Iranians.
President Trump said that any Iranian military or security forces who surrender will not be punished; and that Iranian officials moving into empty leadership slots are willing to talk to him. I assume this is part of an effort to sow confusion in the degraded communications environment and make security forces and leaders wonder if others will cut a deal with America and throw them under the bus.
And America announced that oil traffic out of the Persian Gulf should stop lest the Iranian attack the tankers.
Since then, the war has continued. ISW is devoting resources to tracking the campaign, which for now is unclear on what it will achieve. Or how effectively Iran can fight.
Why Now and Why No Broad Coalition of the Willing?
And in standard operating procedure for many critics of American military action, on the first day of the attacks I began to see people arguing that while of course the Iranian regime is awful and deserves to die, is it really a priority for America when Russia is at war with Ukraine and China is a growing threat?
FFS. We and our allies are containing Russia's invasion of Ukraine; and we and our allies are still building up to stop China from starting or winning a war. I think we can count on allies to hold those lines with a bit less support from America for a while.
Iran is an active threat right now and preventing mullahs from getting nuclear weapons--we don't want a nuclear 9/11--is absolutely the priority right now regardless of the long term problem of China and the ongoing Russia problem. And we do recognize the power that their nuclear weapons give them to constrain our actions, right? We don't want mullah-run Iran to have that power, too, do we?
Conversely, we did not insist that our allies in Europe and Asia participate in our attacks on Iran. Division of labor is not abandonment of allies. Although Britain, per their prime minister, has stood up with air defense efforts to block Iranian missile attacks in CENTCOM. And later, Britain, France, and Germany signaled support for American military operations to stop Iranian retaliatory strikes.
Too many people making the "Iran is the wrong priority right now" argument effectively support American paralysis by always looking for Mister Good War in the face of a current threat:
[The] war we are in is never as good as the last war we fought or the potential war against the "real" threat we aren't fighting.
And from a different angle, advice to focus on the strongest threat to the exclusion of any other threat is really saying we should not go for weak points in an enemy alliance--or alignment, as I prefer. I recall that at one time military theorists claimed it was best to go after the strongest section of the enemy defenses on the theory that once you break that, all else will be easy. That was incorrect thinking for reasons I shouldn't have to explain.
But hey, at least that "wrong enemy right now" theory isn't the bizarre defense of the mullah regime all too common in the West from the usual suspects as if Iran is the land of frolicking puppies, kittens, and ducklings.
The odious Iranian regime has been at war with America since their revolution nearly fifty years ago. What part of "Great Satan" (and "Death to America") has been unclear? As I note in that post, if the mullahs fall many American objectives will be at least a bit less difficult to pursue.
Waiting For the Outcome to Define the Campaign
Good hunting to American forces. And let's keep our guard up at home and at bases abroad. You never know when the Iranians will pack civilian shipping containers with missiles or masses of suicide drones to strike far from their shores. Or simple naval mines. Enemies do funny things at war. It's almost like they want to win rather than seek off ramps and finely crafted exit strategies.
It is not clear if this will be the Iranian Counter-Revolution of 2026 or the Iran Punitive Mission of 2026.
Either could be called a win even if the latter isn't nearly as good as the former that actually ends the long war Iran's mullahs have waged on America, Israel, and Arab states. Think Desert Fox in 1998 under Clinton or the Libya War under Obama.
Problems will flow from instability should the stability of a cemetery that the mullahs provided collapses. Heck, this could be the break up of the rump Persian Empire. But the benefits would be tremendous for cutting this Gordian Knot.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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NOTE: Basic map image from (obviously) WorldAtlas.com
NOTE: I duplicated this post on Substack. But if I update this going forward, it will be this version.
