Following the largest U.S military buildup in the region since 2003, including two carrier strike groups, stealth fighters and supporting capabilities, President Trump announced two weeks ago that “major combat operations in Iran” had commenced. The purpose of the war, he declared, is to defend the American people “by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”
Specifically, President Trump listed five objectives for the Operation Epic Fury air campaign against Iran: (1) destroy Iran’s missile capabilities and industry; (2) destroy the Iranian Navy; (3) prevent Iran’s proxies from destabilizing the region; (4) ensure Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon; and (5) regime change. The final objective is upon which everything rests and is the most difficult to achieve.
Two weeks into the war, and despite ongoing Iranian missile and drone retaliatory strikes against its neighbors and on U.S. military installations in the region, and the closing of the Straits of Hormuz, the air campaign is succeeding. Iran’s missile capabilities are being eliminated, with the number of Iranian launches declining significantly.
The Iranian navy has been seriously weakened with most of its ships now at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. Furthermore, in the war’s opening salvo, Israel successfully killed Iran’s brutal dictator Ayatollah Khamenei along with much of Iran’s military high command.
However, we must not lose sight of the fact that by relying on air power alone, Trump has taken a large risk that likely will not result in regime change.
Regime change in a country of 90 million people will prove difficult, and to date air power alone without ground forces has never produced regime change. Even if ground forces are deployed — a possibility the President has not ruled out — resistance is likely to continue over time.
The president hopes that the Iranian people or members within the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) or the broader security organizations will turn on the regime, receive immunity, and negotiate an end to the conflict. It is notable that Trump did not include the destruction of the IRGC, which controls Iran, or the complete destruction of Iran’s military as campaign objectives.
But hope is not a strategy, and both the regime and IRGC are not going quietly into the night. Trump seems to realize this and has indicated that he is willing to work with alternatives to the existing leadership, provided he has a say in who those individuals might be.
The Iranian regime has proven highly resilient and adept at maintaining its grip on power. Iran has selected a new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the recently killed leader, who is likely to be even more radical than his father. Furthermore, the regime has no compulsion against using brute force against its own people. Over decades the regime has mastered murderous repression, culminating in the killing thousands during January’s protest. Facing an existential threat, we can expect the regime to use all forces available to maintain its power.
To give Iranian dissidents a fighting chance at toppling the regime, the U.S. and Israel will have to systematically weaken the Iranian security infrastructure, specifically by targeting the IRGC and the regime’s paramilitary organization, the Basij force, which operates at a very local level within Iranian society. Unless the regime’s security forces are significantly weakened the protestors will have little chance.
Another challenge is that not all Iranians wish for regime change. Over the decades the Iranian regime has constructed a highly lucrative political and economic system directly benefiting key organizations, including the IRGC. The regime also has the backing of many Iranians who prescribe to the religious-authoritarian ideology which has governed Iran since 1979.
If the regime collapses, those benefiting from it, or who adhere to its ideological beliefs, will lose more than their political and economic power — they will lose their lives. That provides a strong incentive to hold onto power regardless of American pressure.
Aggravating the challenge to achieving regime change in Iran is the lack of a unified opposition in or outside of the country. There is no equivalent of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s, or the African National Congress in South Africa during apartheid, or even the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan in 2001. What exists is widespread frustration within Iran and in the Iranian diaspora community in the U.S. and elsewhere. Without a unifying figure or organization, it is incredibly difficult to organize a successful uprising against an entrenched regime, however weakened it is.
The ultimate measure of success in war is whether battlefield success translates into achieving long-term political objectives. In the short term, the first two objectives of destroying Iranian missile capabilities and its navy are achievable. However, any long-term political solution to the nuclear enrichment issue, the sponsoring of terrorism, and halting Iran’s expansionist foreign policy, depends on whether the existing brutal regime is replaced by one that is more friendly towards the United States, Israel, its Arab neighbors, and towards its own people.
If it does not, the existing regime with its brutality and tyranny will emerge stronger and its grip on power more protracted than ever. With sound policies and luck, new leadership will emerge in Tehran, repudiate the radical revolutionary ideology, and its nuclear program, and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for Iran, the Middle East and the United States.
Dr. Ricardo A. Crespo is a professor of political science and chair of the political economy department at Grossmont College.
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