John Spencer
Day 29: What could possibly be the U.S. options in Iran?
The U.S.-Iran war has been underway for 29 days now. It is increasingly difficult to distinguish real strategic and military expertise from politicized opinion, speculation, and narrative. Too many people jump immediately from where we are today to a full-scale ground invasion. They assume the only option is for U.S. forces to seize Tehran, secure nuclear material by force, destroy a supposed million-man army, and then get pulled into another decades-long nation-building effort or fight a Maoist-style insurgency. That is not analysis. That is shallow thinking rooted in outdated and often biased mental models of war. President Trump has signaled a 10-day pause on strikes against Iran’s energy infrastructure, now extended to April 6. We are days into that timeline. But the real question is not what has been done. The real question is what options remain.
It is a given that CENTCOM and Israel will continue systematic attacks on Iran’s military system. Iran entered this war with thousands of ballistic missiles, hundreds of launchers, a dispersed drone enterprise, a layered naval capability in the Gulf, remnants of a nuclear enrichment program, and a military industrial base built for redundancy and survivability. That system is being destroyed. But it is not yet eliminated.
At the same time, Israel is targeting something far more important than just military capability. It is targeting the regime’s ability to rule once the bombs stop falling. That means hunting and eliminating political and military leadership. It means degrading the Basij, the regime’s internal enforcement arm. It means targeting checkpoints, intelligence nodes, and internal security infrastructure.
This is not just tactical action. This is strategic pressure applied simultaneously against Iran’s means and its will. Its ability to fight and its ability to govern are being targeted at the same time. That is how you coerce behavior change without occupying a capital.
Continue reading …
Day 29: What could possibly be the U.S. options in Iran?
The U.S.-Iran war has been underway for 29 days now. It is increasingly difficult to distinguish real strategic and military expertise from politicized opinion, speculation, and narrative. Too many people jump immediately from where we are today to a full-scale ground invasion. They assume the only option is for U.S. forces to seize Tehran, secure nuclear material by force, destroy a supposed million-man army, and then get pulled into another decades-long nation-building effort or fight a Maoist-style insurgency. That is not analysis. That is shallow thinking rooted in outdated and often biased mental models of war. President Trump has signaled a 10-day pause on strikes against Iran’s energy infrastructure, now extended to April 6. We are days into that timeline. But the real question is not what has been done. The real question is what options remain.
It is a given that CENTCOM and Israel will continue systematic attacks on Iran’s military system. Iran entered this war with thousands of ballistic missiles, hundreds of launchers, a dispersed drone enterprise, a layered naval capability in the Gulf, remnants of a nuclear enrichment program, and a military industrial base built for redundancy and survivability. That system is being destroyed. But it is not yet eliminated.
At the same time, Israel is targeting something far more important than just military capability. It is targeting the regime’s ability to rule once the bombs stop falling. That means hunting and eliminating political and military leadership. It means degrading the Basij, the regime’s internal enforcement arm. It means targeting checkpoints, intelligence nodes, and internal security infrastructure.
This is not just tactical action. This is strategic pressure applied simultaneously against Iran’s means and its will. Its ability to fight and its ability to govern are being targeted at the same time. That is how you coerce behavior change without occupying a capital.
Continue reading …
No comments:
Post a Comment