Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israel’s militarily useless, entirely unprovoked and wholly illegal air war on Iran differs significantly from its previous wars in the region, which involved ground invasions with armor and infantry.
Israel defeated Egypt in 1956 and again in 1967 with a combination of air force and armor and infantry. It suffered a reversal in 1973 when Egypt proved able to cross the Suez Canal and head toward a defenseless Israel, though a conquest of Israel was not the aim of then President Anwar El Sadat and so Israel was able to riposte and fight to a draw. Egypt arguably won on points.
Likewise Israeli armor, troops and air power drove Jordan out of the West Bank in 1967. While bombing Jordan and Lebanon did succeed it turning local populations against the Palestinian refugees that had been ethnically cleansed from Palestine by the Israelis, Iran does not have a similar demographic divide.
Israel has no land forces or armor in Iran, though it may have some small intelligence or special ops units on the ground. Its war on Iran is solely an air war. No war has ever been won entirely from the air. Despite Israel’s considerable intelligence capabilities and ability to target military and political leaders, it cannot overthrow the government through serial assassinations. The Israeli security establishment firmly believes that assassinating leaders can cause organizations to collapse. It is a false belief, and the falsity has been demonstrated time and again, most notably by the resilience of Hamas.
As Matt Fitzpatrick points out, if Iranian generals are killed, colonels will be promoted. Killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the clerical Leader of Iran, would simply lead the 88-member Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Khobregan-e Rahbari) — the Iranian equivalent of the Vatican’s College of Cardinals — to elect a new August Leader (Rahbar-e Mo`azzam). Iran’s government, with four branches, is particularly complex. The Assembly of Experts, the Expediency Council, the judiciary and the office of the August Leader are all staffed by seminary-trained clerics of standing. In addition, there is a popularly elected president and parliament.
Iran is a country of 90 million people, somewhat more populous than Germany, and its geographical extent equals that of Germany, France and Spain combined. It is not, as an enemy, let us say bite-sized. When George W. Bush foolishly invaded Iraq, it was a country of some 25 million and it is geographically much smaller than Iran. It was not a walk in the park.
Unless an enemy army takes Tehran, as the US military took Baghdad in 2003, this four-branch government cannot be gotten rid of by a foreign power. Bombing the capital won’t do the trick.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may hope that by killing high-ranking generals and perhaps even some civilian leaders, he can weaken the government enough to allow opposition forces to make a revolution. It is unlikely, however, that the political opposition could or would essentially collaborate with the Israeli attack. Most Iranians are above all nationalists. There are some quislings so eager for power that they would ally with Israel, such as the MEK (People’s Jihadis) cult that has recruited so many US politicians in Washington, D.C., but they are tiny and widely despised.
The US bombed Vietnam for a decade and still lost the war, despite having 500,000 troops on the ground. The US bombed Afghanistan for twenty years and still lost the war despite at some points having 100,000 troops on the ground. Air power alone would have produced even less impressive results.
So even if President Donald J. Trump takes the unwise step of joining Israel in its bombing campaign, it is difficult to see what military victories that might bring.
Iran is a Shiite country with a strong devotion to martyrs, and martyring Shiites will not cause them to lose heart.
The Israeli bombing campaign has probably set back Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program a few weeks, but since the country has a great deal of engineering and science expertise and has uranium mines, these bombing campaigns cannot remove Iran’s nuclear know-how.
And that delay seems to me likely the main advantage that might accrue to Israel from the war. Since I don’t think Ayatollah Khamenei wants or would permit an actual nuclear weapons program, I don’t think Netanyahu gained anything by these measures.
All previous seekers of a nuclear bomb that were serious about the acquisition — India, Pakistan, North Korea — were able to construct one fairly quickly. If Iran wanted a bomb, it would have one by now.
What Tehran wants is for its nuclear capability to deter any attempted invasion. This is sometimes called “the Japan option” or “nuclear latency.” Apparently one take-away from the current war is that a country pursuing nuclear latency as a deterrence strategy, which does not actually build a bomb, needs a very good air force to protect its embryonic nuclear program.
Israel is also not likely able to keep up its air war against Iran much longer. Some reports suggest it will have to stand down within a week. Israel has certainly taken much more damage than Netanyahu and his zealots had anticipated, to the Haifa refinery, to Mossad (intelligence) headquarters, and to military installations. The Iranians have even plausibly threatened to hit the Israeli reactor at Dimona, though that would be a risky move against a nuclear power. The longer the war continues, however, the stronger that temptation will become.
“Resistance,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / ChatGPT, 2025
Moreover, there is a danger that Iran will respond to a prolonged campaign by sabotaging its neighbors’ oil industries, which could reignite high inflation in the industrialized world.
As many observers are pointing out, there is also a danger that the Iranian governmental elite will take the lesson from their helplessness that Khamenei’s opposition to building a nuke is just wrong. While I can’t see Khamenei changing his mind on this, he is 86 and one can easily imagine that the Assembly of Experts might elect as his successor someone willing to sanction a military nuclear program. Iran could probably make a bomb in only a few years if its scientists and engineers were ordered to undertake this task.
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