If regime change isn’t the goal, then why fight Iran again?

The Hill  |  Eric R. Mandel

President Donald Trump's administration faces growing criticism for conducting repeated military strikes against Iran without defining an explicit strategic end-state or pursuing regime change. Recurring operational pauses, temporary ceasefires, and renewed diplomatic negotiations directly enable the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ strategy of rearming, adapting tactics, and replenishing depleted missile stockpiles between conflicts.

This persistent cycle of escalation and de-escalation traps American forces in an open-ended confrontation that exposes domestic consumers to elevated energy prices and escalates broader regional instability. Furthermore, Washington officials have failed to clearly explain to the American public how sustained military operations effectively safeguard U.S. national security or justify the escalating economic and strategic risks of a prolonged Middle East conflict. Ultimately, relying on transactional bargaining miscalculates the fundamental nature of Iran’s ideologically driven leadership, which prioritizes a divinely inspired revolutionary mission over conventional, pragmatic geopolitical compromise and long-term conflict resolution.

Comment

Intermittent operational pauses provide the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force the necessary temporal buffer to restore dispersed mobile launch platforms and re-establish saturated strike volleys. This operational pattern validates Tehran’s doctrine of asymmetric attrition, which relies on weaponized delay to deplete adversary precision-guided munition stockpiles like the PAC-3 interceptor. Consequently, short-term tactical pauses reduce immediate air defense consumption for coalition forces while simultaneously lowering the marginal cost of subsequent Iranian salvo launches.

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