What Is Another Round of Bombing in Iran Actually Going to Achieve?

There is an awful lot of smoke going up around the whole war thing these days. The USS Theodore Roosevelt is in transit to the Persian Gulf region, where it is expected to arrive late next month. Pete Hegseth popped over to Israel Monday for a quick visit to Benjamin Netanyahu, whose air force has been engaging in some rather scary-looking maneuvers around Iranian airspace. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi penned an op-ed for the Financial Times discouraging the U.S. and company from taking another crack at his employer; Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of the Islamic Republic’s Supreme National Security Council, gave comment to Drop Site News to the same effect, albeit with a lot more growling and baring of teeth. The State Department is sending folks home, and the number of troops at regional bases is being reduced. The New York Times reports that the next round of strikes is planned for after the American midterm elections

Sometimes you have to restate the obvious—dirty work, but someone has to do it: Another round of strikes is unlikely to accomplish this war’s stated political goals, which themselves change on a regular basis. While never-ending, mindless destruction for its own sake has its charms, I guess, generally speaking a war is supposed to accomplish something; the “something” here has been at various times and non-exclusively the end of the Iranian nuclear program, reopening the Strait of Hormuz (which was open before the war), and regime change. The going theory among the teeming intellects downtown appears to be that yet another movement in the symphony of death, in concert with Scott Bessent’s exotic economic maneuvers, will get the Iranians to cry uncle and/or provoke a change of management in Tehran.

Anything is possible, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Even if you ignore the actual public support for the Islamic Republic that this war has engendered, an indigenous uprising against the regime would likely provoke a civil war. Such a scenario won’t make the Hormuz safe or secure Iranian nuclear assets; energy markets will continue to make unhappy faces and low moaning noises until there is something like a settlement. Iran is not Syria; it is simply too large for us to indulge in a decade-long luxury war there. Instability will demand continued and intensive American attention until there’s a resolution. 

But, if we fall short of triggering a civil war and the regime remains securely ensconced, why would the Iranians be more tractable after yet another round of bombing? What will make this time different? (And if there is something substantively different about this approach, why didn’t we try it before burning through years’ worth of Patriot interceptors and compromising our force posture everywhere else in the world?)

If this line of questioning seems repetitive, that’s because it is. There has been a fundamental disjunction of military means and political ends from the very beginning of this war (really, since the 12-Day War, but we can afford to be generous when there are so many more recent and egregious stupidities to anatomize). Getting Iran to—to what? To dismantle its nuclear program completely? To give up its newfound leverage in the Hormuz? To embrace liberal democracy? The answer continues to change, depending on the day and which creeping thing from the administration is doing the talking. In any case, getting Iran to do it, whatever it is, can only be accomplished by negotiation or the application of main force. (Welcome to the academic discipline of international relations.) Main force is expensive and painful, and you always need more of it than you think; even after a couple years of indiscriminate air war, Nazi Germany didn’t fall until there was a ground invasion, and it went down fighting tooth and claw. The ceiling for negotiated outcomes may be lower, but diplomacy is less costly and less painful.

But, as the song says, you can’t get what you want ‘til you know what you want. Political prudence is about matching means to ends. While the baboon-like Hegseth and his catamites at CENTCOM may find meaning and pleasure in death per se, the actual humans in the administration should reconsider blowing another few dozen billion dollars on more of the same. A fresh round of bombing is unlikely to move us closer to economic normality and a stable settlement in the Middle East; nor is it likely to move the Republicans further away from the electoral pillory, not just in the midterms, but in 2028. The fundamentals haven’t changed. Why hasn’t our strategy?

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