Where Is the Iran War Headed?
Since 1979, the Iranian revolutionary regime has been the sworn enemy of eight American presidents. No one could tame his political furies; his covert operations, which killed more than a thousand Americans in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan; or its expansion, through the creation of like-minded extremist movements, across the Middle East. The Islamic Republic viewed its mini-kingdom as a defensive buffer against American and Israeli intervention. The United States and Israel viewed Iran as the most persistent threat in the world’s most unstable region. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have now set out to destroy the regime, militarily and politically, in a reckless war of choice, with no visible or considered endpoint – and, in Trump’s case, without prior congressional approval or warning to American taxpayers.
For Operation Epic Fury, the Trump administration has so far deployed nearly half of the United States’ air power and about a third of its naval assets. The cost amounts to nearly nine hundred million dollars per day, estimates the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Much like the initial “shock and awe” campaign during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, the first week of the war was militarily stunning. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior officials were killed. Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal has been seriously depleted and its strategic facilities left in ruins. His navy was devastated; A US submarine torpedoed an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, the first such strike since World War II. Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, boasted: “Bigger and bigger waves are coming. We’re just getting started.” Iran’s capabilities, he added, are “evaporating.”
Trump, with his usual inconsistency, called on Iranians to rise up against the ruthless theocracy – last week he demanded their “unconditional surrender” – but also said he was ready to deal with a new religious leader. Since 2017, millions of Iranians have participated in protests; tens of thousands of people were killed. But for now, an uprising seems unlikely. Iranians will first have to pick up the political and physical pieces of their lives, and while public fury against the government has not abated, foreign military intervention has inflamed a millennia-old sense of nationalism. The prospect of many members of Iran’s security forces – there are more than a million of them, including reservists – joining a popular rebellion also seems unlikely.
The war shook the already troubled international order. After two disastrous American wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a worrying feeling that this one could be complicated, costly and deadly, even if Trump seems confident. Iran is larger, in size and population, than Iraq and Afghanistan combined. It is undoubtedly the most important geostrategic country in the three regions it borders: the Arab world; the formerly Soviet “stans” of Central Asia; and nuclear-armed Afghanistan and Pakistan in South Asia. It has vast oil and gas reserves, as well as the largest army in the Middle East, and it wields powerful influence in parts of the Muslim world, particularly among Shiites.
Trump said his biggest surprise was the scale of Tehran’s response. Iran was clearly prepared, especially after the Twelve Day War last June, when the president ordered B-2 stealth warplanes to drop bunker busting bombs on nuclear facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. This time, he responded with missile and drone strikes on seven oil-rich neighbors and U.S. allies, from Iraq to Saudi Arabia and Oman. It targeted international airports, hotels, businesses, ports and energy facilities. Despite American defensive superiority, Iran struck the American embassy in Riyadh; the consulate in Dubai; the largest US military base in the Middle East, in Al Udeid, Qatar; and the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, which coordinates U.S. naval operations across the Middle East. Netanyahu said he had dreamed of overthrowing the theocracy for forty years, but Iranian missiles penetrated Israel’s Iron Dome defenses. Airborne sirens repeatedly alerted residents of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to seek refuge. Dozens of buildings, including a military airbase, were hit. Hezbollah, Iran’s long-time partner, has opened a second front with Israel from Lebanon.
