Why Donald Trump Should Just Declare Victory in the Iran War

National Interest  |  Ivan R. Eland

United States military planners recently evaluated airstrikes against Iranian electrical grids and oil refineries to compel regime collapse, triggering severe retaliatory counter-operations across global energy infrastructure. Tehran responded by demonstrating asymmetric reach, orchestrating Houthi proxy attacks in the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, threatening Persian Gulf energy infrastructure, and conducting a major cyberattack against Minnesota municipal water systems.

Exhaustive empirical research from the University of Chicago confirms that coercive airpower historically fails to induce political collapse, instead generating strong rally-around-the-flag dynamics that consolidate domestic state authority during foreign bombardment. With the Pentagon warning of diminishing high-value Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets, additional American bombing runs risk crippling global economic stability through sustained crude oil price spikes while failing to dismantle governing institutions. Bypassing further strategic military escalation in favour of declaring a unilateral cessation of hostilities offers the primary structural pathway to contain broad maritime and energy warfare.

Comment

The assumption that infrastructure bombardment can fracture state control echoes the flawed attrition logic of Operation Rolling Thunder during the Vietnam War. Findings from the United States Strategic Bombing Survey similarly demonstrated that industrial disruption rarely translates into civilian revolt against deeply entrenched central regimes. When targeting shifts from frontline military formations to dual-use energy assets, adversary doctrine invariably shifts toward asymmetric peripheral harassment rather than internal capitulation. Iran's operational reliance on distributed proxy networks and cyber capabilities ensures that decapitation strikes on physical grids yield negligible counter-force leverage.

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