Limited War in Iran? Don’t Bet On It!

This article by Global Geneva Americas' Editor William Dowell was first published as part of A Different Place.

America’s self-styled “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth, appears definitely convinced that “Epic Fury,” the massive US and Israeli military assault against Iran, will topple the regime in Iran without the U.S. having to fight yet another lengthy war.

“No stupid rules of engagement,” Hegseth told his first news conference since the attack began, “no nation building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives.”

“This is not Iraq,” Hegseth continued. “This is not endless.”

Maybe so, but as a famous quotation, often incorrectly attributed to Albert Einstein, puts it: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.”

The U.S. failed in Iraq, largely because the Republican administration of George W. Bush launched a war without a clear plan for what was likely to happen once a military victory had been achieved. Now, the Trump administration appears to be repeating the same mistake. Hegseth is right about one thing: Iran is not Iraq; it is three times the size of Iraq and more strategically located. It is also nearly two-and-a-half times the size of Vietnam when the U.S. faced defeat there. There is plenty of opposition to Iran’s current repressive theocratic regime, but that doesn’t mean that most Iranians are ready to have either Israel or the United States decide their future.

Trump’s plan initially called for spending several days bombing Iran, and then leaving it up to the Iranians to figure out what to do next. The plan, in short, was to spread mayhem without an exit strategy. To say that this approach makes no sense is an understatement. Even the operation’s title, Epic Fury, has an ironic twist. It expresses Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s testosterone-fed fury with Iran, but it could just as easily be applied to the uncontrolled fury that the collateral damage to civilians from indiscriminate bombing is likely to trigger in Iran.

What can the Iranians really do to confront the combined might of the United States and Israel? As it turns out, quite a lot. Trump’s operation has already closed the Straits of Hormuz, the key gateway for the transport of a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply. The shutdown was not only Iran’s; the deciding factor was insurance companies' refusal to cover ships exiting through the straits.

To no one’s surprise, the assault ordered by Trump led Iran to immediately launch missile and drone attacks against several countries in the region that had been hosting U.S. bases. As a result, Kuwait accidentally shot down three American fighter jets. The crews ejected safely, but the friendly fire incident is only the beginning.

More potentially damaging, the joint Israeli-American operation makes future negotiations with Iran even less likely to produce desired results. The fact that the U.S. pretended to negotiate seriously while secretly planning a surprise attack makes it unlikely that America’s word will be trusted anytime soon.

The Iranians are not the only ones who have a right to be angry at what they no doubt see as a betrayal. Despite the U.S. Constitution’s insistence that the president obtain or at least listen to the advice and consent of Congress before going to war, Trump bypassed the American system and committed each and every one of us to a potentially destabilizing war based only on his personal judgment and limited knowledge. In effect, he acted as a dictator, not a president. As for the compliant Republican majority in Congress that was elected to provide meaningful oversight, it was away on holiday when the attack took place.

It will take a while for the full repercussions to be felt by the American public. But it is safe to say the impact will eventually hit home. If the Straits of Hormuz remain closed, oil and gas prices will increase dramatically, and that will drive up the price of just about anything that requires any form of transportation.

The idea of keeping the war limited to a few days of airstrikes is also unlikely to survive. Trump has already suggested that the operation may need to be extended to four or five weeks and that additional American troops will need to be sent into the region.

Far from crumbling, the regime in Tehran has remained remarkably intact. Iran’s top leadership, notably the Supreme Guide, Ali Khamenei, has been eliminated, but Khamenei who was 86 was due to be replaced anyway. After last June’s attack against Iranian nuclear sites, the Iranians made a point of choosing designated survivors. Khamenei’s assassination only accelerated what was already a done deal. It has been clear for a long time, and especially to Iran’s leadership that an eventual regime change was inevitable. The difference this time around is that instead of a repressive theocratic government that at least felt that it had to make a pretense at following Islamic laws, the new replacement is likely to emerge from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the group that had served as Khamenei’s enforcer and the source of most of Iran’s previous adventures into international terrorism.

Of course, it is always possible that a sudden jolt from Epic Fury just might clear the way for a more open and humane government to take over, or at least a government that is actually open to dealing with the U.S. and Israel. The history of the region, however, suggests that that is an unlikely outcome.

Any number of experts in the U.S. State Department could have explained the reality of the Middle East to Trump if he hadn’t already fired them. Instead of expertise, we have Pete Hegseth, a former weekend TV anchor for Fox News, and Tulsi Gabbard, an ex-Army nurse who now oversees U.S. intelligence operations, attempting to explain how the world works to a president suffering from a critically short attention span. The safety net of at least semi-knowledgeable advisers that helped save Trump’s first term in office has been replaced by a cabinet of sycophants ready to execute Trump’s bidding without question.

Most Americans are not equipped to know what will happen next. Americans, for the most part, have stopped reading newspapers or paying much attention to foreign news. When prices start to rise even higher than they are now and Americans begin dying overseas, we will ask ourselves what happened and why. By then, it may be too late. As the experts might have warned us if we had deigned to listen, it is easy to start a war; it is much harder to end one.

Foreign correspondent and author William Dowell is Global Geneva's America’s editor based in Philadelphia. Over the past decades, he has covered much of the globe, including Iran, for TIME, ABC News and other news organizations.