Foreign Affairs
Iran Without a Plan
The administration risks repeating the Iraq debacle as farce.
(CARLOS BARRIA/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The United States is steamrolling toward another Middle East crisis of its own making. A second American-Israeli attack on Iran seems almost inevitable—this time likely to be far deadlier for all involved parties. President Donald Trump has surged military assets to the region, threatening that “time is running out” for Tehran to make a deal. He is even reportedly considering using U.S. special forces to launch ground raids against nuclear and ballistic missile infrastructure and other regime targets.
Yet what Trump hopes to achieve remains unclear. Washington has failed to articulate a clear endgame in Iran. Force has become an end in itself, detached from clear and achievable strategic goals.
Proceeding down this path risks disaster. Further U.S. military action against Iran would not be aimed at protecting concrete interests, but at advancing a failed regional agenda that has guided American Middle East policy for decades. Vague objectives, inflated threat perceptions, and regime-change fantasies threaten to pull the U.S. into a costly war that Americans do not want. Trump should immediately pivot toward negotiations with Tehran with realistic expectations.
Current calls for war represent the latest iteration of a multi-decade cycle of policy inertia and special interests pushing the United States toward military confrontation with Iran. This push received new impetus following the series of losses to Iran’s strategic position in the two years since Hamas’s terror attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza. As Israel escalated against Iran’s regional proxies and the Islamic Republic directly, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has lobbied for U.S.-led regime change in Iran for nearly three decades—and hawks in Washington hoped to pressure Trump into capitalizing on this vulnerability.
At first, Trump resisted the pressure for military action against Iran. But after five rounds of talks, progress stalled, thanks primarily to Washington being pressured by Israel and its supporters into adopting the poison-pill demand of zero domestic enrichment of uranium. Ultimately, Trump caved, first greenlighting Israel’s attacks on Iran and then joining the war by striking three Iranian nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. Afterwards, he claimed the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program—a claim contradicted by both American intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Israel initiated the “12-Day War” against Iran under the dubious pretext of preventing Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon—something Israeli officials have claimed has been imminent for decades, despite U.S. intelligence estimates to the contrary. In reality, Israel’s attacks were not about preempting an imminent threat, but instead an opening salvo to a conflict Netanyahu and his allies hoped would result in regime change.
Now, Israel and hawks in Washington are demanding the United States go back in. Israel first predicated the need for new strikes on targeting Iran’s ballistic missile program. Then, the narrative shifted toward the need to protect Iranian protesters after the outbreak of a mass upheaval rallying against a growing economic crisis inside Iran. This constant moving of the goalposts reflects a sustained effort by these same actors to push the United States toward pursuing regime change in Tehran. For both Israel and hawks in Washington, the greatest problem with Iran has never been its nuclear program, its ballistic missiles, or its authoritarian nature—it remains the regime itself.
Trump has taken the bait. He seems more interested in capitulation than negotiations, demanding that Tehran abandon domestic uranium enrichment, curb its ballistic missile program, and end support for its regional proxies. Yet the idea that Iran would willingly render itself more vulnerable after the losses it incurred over the past two years defies even basic logic. Negotiations will fail if the U.S. enters with these maximalist demands—something proponents of American strikes on Iran are counting on.
New U.S. or Israeli strikes would not be about preempting an imminent threat, let alone freeing the Iranian people from tyranny—they would more likely be geared toward regime degradation and/or collapse. The lack of even ostensible rationales for renewed military action in Iran is glaring. Washington is frantically reaching for justifications to support an already predetermined course of action.
There is no clear endgame to Trump’s Iran plan. Airstrikes alone will not collapse the regime. Nor is the punitive use of force a realistic option for brokering a diplomatic agreement with Iran. Trump’s demands are even greater this time around, which risks repeating the same failures that led to the 12-Day War.
Assuming U.S. strikes would be a one-and-done operation risks triggering a dangerous escalation spiral. Those clamoring for American military action are likely to press for sustained engagement to ensure the regime’s demise and manage an internal transition. They are pushing a maximalist agenda and will keep moving the goalposts until Washington pursues their preferred course of action.
Nor is renewed military action likely to help Iranian protesters. Despite the breadth of the protests, elite cohesion held and the security apparatus remained loyal to the regime, allowing it to squash the uprising through brutal repression. It should go without saying that Iranians, like all people, deserve to live free and determine their own future. But they should not be treated as political pawns.
There is no evidence that military action would rekindle this movement or empower it to the point of regime collapse. The Iranian opposition remains deeply divided, and hawkish American policies toward Iran have historically empowered regime hardliners. There is no surer way to undermine domestic opposition to the regime in Tehran than by appropriating their struggle to justify foreign military intervention.
To think that Washington can successfully engineer and sustain a new status quo inside Iran through military force epitomizes the fantastical thinking that has guided American Middle East policy for decades. Any meaningful reform must be self-sustaining and cannot be externally imposed.
The current course of action carries tremendous risks for the U.S. and the region. There is a high likelihood that the regime will view the combination of renewed strikes and recent domestic unrest as an existential threat, resulting in greater retaliation against the U.S. and its regional partners than before. Tehran will want to signal that periodic American or Israeli attacks inside Iran will not become routine. Iranian officials have indicated as much, claiming Tehran would respond to renewed US or Israeli military action with greater force than during the 12-Day War.
Despite the considerable losses incurred over the past two years, Iran retains the ability and resources necessary to respond decisively. This risks not only destabilizing the Middle East, but also endangering the lives of the roughly 40,000 U.S. troops in the region while dragging the United States into a protracted conflict at a time when it is considerably overextended abroad.
Bombing Iran risks repeating the past mistakes of U.S. military interventions in the Middle East. Trump’s window to change course is closing fast. Diplomacy remains the sole means of averting another regional crisis.
The post Iran Without a Plan appeared first on The American Conservative.
