Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As the Israeli-American-Iran War of 2026 enters its fifth day, it becomes clear that Israel and the US are fighting a conventional air war. Iran, in contrast, is fighting a techno-guerrilla war.
The US and Israeli decapitation strikes, killing over 40 high-ranking Iranian officials, have not had the desired effect. This is because Iran is not functioning as a top-down command-and-control dictatorship. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is reverting to its guerrilla roots and is operating with something like a cell structure. Reports from Iran suggest that before he was killed, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei established three to four layers of command in each of the major institutions. If one layer is killed by Israeli bombardment, the one beneath it activates.
It is worth noting that quite apart from its failure, this tactic of killing civilian leaders is a war crime and is unprecedented in modern warfare. The Israeli right wing is determined to tear down every last vestige of International Humanitarian Law as it was legislated into being after WW II, and has cheapened public discourse to the point where no public officials even bother to call out these serial war crimes. Even Vladimir Putin, who has committed plenty of war crimes of his own, has not just offed Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiyy.
The Israelis have long been fixated on decapitation as a military strategy. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon deployed it against Hamas in the early years of this century. It doesn’t work against guerrilla groups organzed by cell or clan very well, which is why Hamas has still not been wiped out despite the Gaza genocide. The US deployed decapitation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and it was so ineffective that in 2014 ISIL took 40% of Iraq. It was only defeated by boots on the ground, with good air support. In 2024 a splinter group from ISIL, led by Ahmad Al-Sharaa, took Syria.
The Israelis on Tuesday claimed to have hit buildings of the elected members of the Assembly of Experts, the 88 clerics who act sort of like the college of cardinals in Catholicism. The Assembly of Experts selects a new clerical Leader of Iran when the old one leaves office or dies. The Iranian media say that the buildings had long since been evacuated and that no ayatollahs were hurt. Even if some had been, more can be elected, There are thousands of ayatollahs in Iran and hundreds of prominent ones.
Again, these are elected civilian officials, and murdering them from the air is a war crime.
In any case, the office of the clerical leader is an institution and cannot be decapitated. As long as the Islamic Republic of Iran exists, the Assembly of Experts can always be reconstituted if it loses members and it can always elect another Leader. I don’t say “Supreme Leader” because that is not the title in Persian. It is “august leader” (rahbar-e mo`azzam) and there is no superlative involved.
For these organizational reasons, the decapitation strikes have failed to prevent the Iranian military from firing thousands of missiles, rockets and drones at Israel, Jordan, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and even Oman. While some of its stockpiles and launchers have been destroyed by Israeli and American strikes, Iran has a very large number of inexpensive Shahed drones, and is manufacturing more during the war. They only cast about $30,000 apiece, but the interceptors to shoot them down cost $1.5 million apiece. Iran claims to have 80,000 Shaheds and to be able to manufacture 400 a day. Despite bravado, there are reasons to think that the US and its allies are running low on interceptors.
Iranian Shahed 131 Drone. Public Domain. Via Picryl
The Revolutionary Guards and military cells that are now taking their own initiative in the absence of reliable command-and-control have decided to take the Arab Gulf states and the world economy hostage as a way of forcing Trump and Netanyahu to back off. As with all hostage-taking, it is a horrible tactic that harms ordinary people. On Tuesday, Iran launched a thousand rocket and drone attacks on the United Arab Emirates, a major oil exporter. With insecurity in the Persian Gulf, oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker traffic has come to a standstill. Qatar, a major world supplier of LNG, has ceased production. Petroleum prices are rising, and if they go on doing so, they could throw the world into a recession. In response, the US stock market fell on Tuesday, as did other markets around the world. How low can they go? And while there is an oil glut at the moment and countries like China have stockpiles of petroleum, the loss of Qatari natural gas is going to hurt consumers in places with cold springs.
Iran’s cadres are betting that the Gulf states and petroleum and gas-consuming states will put enormous pressure on Trump to halt his mercurial and senseless war. Hostage-taking is a common tactic in warfare in general and guerrilla warfare in particular, though I’m using the term somewhat metaphorically. I have no idea if it will work, but certainly the Gulf oil and gas states are suffering a massive economic hit, and their customers cannot be far behind.
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